CANADIANS OPPOSED TO POPPY SPRAYING

Afghan Farmers Often Have Little Alternative

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Canadian diplomats are quietly trying to steer
Afghan counter-narcotics agents away from a proposal to use chemical
spraying to destroy opium-producing poppy fields.

Responding to international pressure, particularly from the United
States, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government is seriously
looking at instituting an aerial spray program to combat the explosion
in the illegal narcotics trade.

"The Canadian position on eradication ... is that it is one of the
pillars of the Afghan national drug control strategy," said Gavin
Buchan, the political director of the provincial reconstruction base
in Kandahar.

"As such, we believe it has a role to play in the overall context.
However, we have significant reservations about the advisability of
chemical spray."

Ultimately, the decision is one for the Afghan government to make, he
said.

Whatever the Afghans do, it will have a significant impact on the
2,500 Canadian troops stationed in Kandahar province. The conventional
wisdom is that a mass eradication effort against dirt-poor farmers who
have no other crops or livelihood would drive them back into the arms
of the Taliban. Many of the militant fighters who attacked Canadian
troops last fall in the Panjwaii and Zhari districts were, in fact,
local farmers, coerced into fighting for the extremists.

But a go-slow approach has its pitfalls as well, given that militants
draw funding from the illegal opium and heroin markets, plowing that
money back into weapons and explosives that are used to attack NATO
troops.

Aside from the military concerns, Buchan said he worries about the
public reaction to the use of chemicals.

"I've had Afghans tell me, 'Oh, I remember what happened when the
Russians used chemicals,' " he said referring to the Soviet occupation
of the 1980s. "They blamed them for a series of diseases and ill
effects. There's that aspect to be considered."

Buchan wouldn't say whether he believed a mass eradication effort
would drive farmers take up arms against NATO.

Canada is not involved in the elimination of poppies, and army
commanders in the field issued strict orders last spring to units to
avoid destroying fields. It was a measure intended to win the trust of
local farmers and to convince them NATO

wasn't there to take away their livelihood, as the Taliban
claimed.

After a record crop in 2006, surveys suggest that there is less poppy
planting going on in Kandahar and Helmand province this year, but
Buchan cautioned that the evidence is only anecdotal at this point.

"To the best of our knowledge, yes, but this is very early in the
growing season, you'll need to leave it for another couple of months
before we have a really good handle on what's out there," he said in
an interview.

The Canadian International Development Agency is spending $18 million
over the next two years to support alternative livelihood programs for
farmers. Many of those projects involve building irrigation systems
wrecked by years of fighting.