AFGHAN FARMERS HANG ON TENACIOUSLY TO THEIR RICHEST CROP - RAW OPIUM

Government Plans To Clear Fields This Weekend But Task Is Enormous

DARE NOOR, AFGHANISTAN - Facing government-imposed eradication of their
precious crops, Afghan poppy growers blame drought and international food
aid -- Canada's included -- for their decision to feed the world narcotics
trade.

Interim President Hamid Karzai says he will dispatch Afghan forces this
weekend to take down thousands of hectares of poppies worth billions of
dollars on opium and heroin markets the world over.

But farmers in Ningarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan say they doubt
security forces will make anything more than a symbolic effort at
preventing the rise of what Karzai fears will become an Afghan narco-state.

And they vow to continue growing the flower until aid agencies and
Afghanistan's weak central government start providing viable alternatives.

SEE NO OPTION

Mohammad Yusaf, a 48-year-old father of nine, served 28 years in the
government. Now he is jobless with no salary.

"We know it is a harmful thing that we do and that it is against human
life," says Yusaf. "But we are also human beings and we also need to have a
good life. We have no alternatives."

"The people of Afghanistan will continue growing poppies until all the
weapons are collected, until we have jobs and until we are protected by a
constitutional law that has practical meaning."

Afghanistan provides three-quarters of the world's heroin -- 97 per cent of
Europe's alone. The country's dry climate is uniquely suited to the red and
white flowers that bloom on roadsides and in hidden valleys alike
throughout the region.

Robert Charles, the U.S. State Department's top counter narcotics official,
predicts more than 121,000 hectares of Afghan poppies will be cultivated
this year. The UN estimates Afghanistan exported $2.3 billion in poppy
products last year, nearly half of the country's gross national product.

Poppies fare better in dry conditions than wheat and farmers argue they
aren't subject to the same market pressures as grain.

AID WORKER DOUBTS GROWERS' EXPLANATION

Farmers who tend hundreds of hectares of poppy crops in the isolated Dare
Noor Valley northeast of Jalalabad say wheat from the World Food Program --
2,000 tonnes from Canada last year -- has glutted Afghanistan's market.

But Susana Rico, director of the World Food Program in the country, said
that's just a simple explanation for a complex problem -- and false
justification for investing in an illegal but wildly profitable business.

In fact, she says, Afghanistan had a record wheat crop last year -- 5.3
million tonnes with unprecedented rain and snow in the north -- but prices
dropped only marginally, if at all.

Wheat yields profits, Rico said, but poppies yield 28 times as much profit.

Yusaf, who ships his product east to the Pakistan border, alleges that the
NGOs in nearby Jalalabad are corrupt and have provided neither seed wheat
nor irrigation.

"They are doing more harm than good," he said. "They drive fancy vehicles,
they take high salaries, they travel with beautiful girls. They just drink
and eat kabobs and sleep."

BELIEVE GOVERNMENT CANNOT ACT EFFECTIVELY

Sayed Hassan Pacha, 65, who has 10 mouths to feed besides his own, said the
government makes threats but acts slowly. It will take out only the
roadside fields, he predicted.

The government, he said, does not have the resources to act more effectively.

Still, farmers around Jalalabad are cutting their bulbs early, bleeding
them of the white "milk" that is their gold, scraping it off every other
day afte r it dries into a brown, pasty substance that is raw opium.

The process last about 15 days, or eight cuttings.

Hassan says he will not give up.

"When there is peace, when factories are built, when there is water and
irrigation, and when there are jobs, that is when we will abandon the
poppy," he said. "But that will take at least four or five years."

Meanwhile, Yusaf -- a shrewd businessman -- has a little nest egg for his
future.

He made enough on his 1999 crop to build a large home. He subsequently
hoarded an opium stockpile in a secret location for the day when the poppy
is finally eradicated and market prices for opium and heroin soar.

"When my father was alive, he advised us never to grow opium in this
field," he said.

"He said if you grow the poppy in this field, the next seven crops you grow
here will be forbidden."

"It is haram (not allowed). You cannot eat them."

Yusaf hopes that last sale will mean he won't have to.