Pubdate: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2005 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 Author: Tom Coghlan, Daily Telegraph (UK) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/afghanistan OPIUM PAYS, GRAIN DOESN'T, AFGHAN FARMERS COMPLAIN HAFI ZAN -- For decades a red carpet of poppies covered the dusty fields of Nangahar. Now wheat and maize sway in the rare breezes of a baking Afghan summer. But the farmers who have abandoned the poppy crop in the face of a British-led campaign against drugs complain that the rural economy has collapsed. Nangahar, east of Kabul, could be portrayed as a success story. Last year it was in the top three Afghan provinces for poppy cultivation. This year production is down by 80 per cent. In Kabul this week, Antonio Maria Costa, of the UN Office for Drugs and Crime, said that such progress was proof that Afghanistan's enormous narcotics trade "can be constrained". As part of the campaign, local farmers were cowed with threats and suborned with pledges of aid. Now they feel betrayed. "Poppy is food, medicine, health, clothes, all aspects of life. It was everything for us," said Del Afgha, a former opium farmer from Hafi Zan, tugging at his ragged clothes. "We were promised an alternative to poppy. But I can only feed my family for five months from what I have grown." - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin