ANOTHER YEAR OF DRUG WAR, AND THE POPPY CROP FLOURISHES

DA BOLAN DASHT, Afghanistan -- Already the green shoots of poppy
plants are showing in the fields of Helmand, the top opium producing
province in Afghanistan, and this year everyone -- government
officials, farmers and aid workers alike -- says there will be
another bumper crop.

"Last year 40 percent of land was used for poppy cultivation," said
Fazel Ahmad Sherzad, head of the anti-narcotics department in
Helmand. "This year it is up to 80 percent in places."

"Three months ago I came and told these farmers not to grow poppy,
but look, it's all poppy," he added, gesturing at the bright green
crop now showing across the acres between the mud-walled farmhouses.

The farmers in this village just 20 minutes' drive from the
provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, did not seem the least bit
embarrassed to be caught growing the illegal crop, which is processed
into opium and heroin. One old farmer, Hajji Habibullah, even weeded
his poppy crop while chatting with the anti-drug chief. "We have to
grow it," he said. "We need the money."

Another farmer, Ahmad Jan, 62, agreed. He has planted 8 of his 10
acres with poppy. "We will not abandon poppy cultivation until the
end of this world," he said. "If the government does not give us
anything first, we will not stop."

The Afghan government and its international backers are suffering
from a serious lack of credibility when it comes to curbing poppy
cultivation here. Despite the strictures of the government and the
police, and personal pleas from President Hamid Karzai for farmers
not to grow it, they have carried on anyway.

Poppy growing is so uncontrolled that despite millions of aid dollars
spent to train anti-drug forces and to help farmers grow other crops,
Afghanistan is showing no sign of leaving its position as the world's
biggest producer of opium. It accounts for almost three-quarters of
global opium production.

Virtually all of the heroin sold in Russia and 75 percent of that
sold in Europe originates in Afghanistan, according to the United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Helmand Province, in Afghanistan's
southwest, alone produces 40 percent of the country's poppy harvest.

The farmers in this village say they have little choice. They live on
land reclaimed from the desert. Nothing grows in the salty earth
except the hardy poppy plant. They have to pump water for irrigation
from a well nearly 100 yards deep, they say, and only high-priced
opium makes the effort cost-effective. They would lose money if they
tried to grow wheat or melons, they said.

"If they destroy the poppy we will have to leave the country," said
another farmer, Pahlawan, 24, who uses only one name. "What else can
we do in the desert?"

But the farmers seem fairly confident that will not happen. "Even now
they think the government will not destroy the poppy," Mr. Sherzad,
the anti-drug chief, said of the farmers. "We even took people to
Kabul for meetings to tell them, but still they think we will not cut it down."

Not without reason. Eradication last year was something of a joke,
nearly all agree. The police brought in tractors to plow up the poppy
fields, but much of it grew back and the farmers still managed to
harvest a crop, Mr. Sherzad said.

The police can also be bribed to leave part of the crop, said the
villagers, out of the hearing of the police. "We have money, so we
are not scared," Mr. Pahlawan said.

They watched the neighboring provinces of Kandahar and Farah get away
with increased cultivation last year, and even clashes with the
eradication force from Kabul, trained by the United States contractor
DynCorp, without repercussions.

"In Kandahar last year there was no pressure to stop growing poppy,"
said Steve Shaulis, who runs the Central Asia Development Group,
which helps farmers develop alternative crops. "This is the rebound effect."

Two farmers from the Nawa district south of Lashkar Gah, where the
police did destroy the poppy crop last year, said that this year the
farmers were hedging in every way they could. Some are growing double
the usual amount of poppy because they are calculating that half of
the crop may be eradicated. Others are growing smaller amounts behind
walled gardens to see if they can get away with it, said one of the
farmers, Jamal Khan, 24.

The Taliban, too, are promoting the growing, as a source of income
for their operations. They have spread leaflets ordering farmers to grow poppy.

In Helmand, the Taliban have forged an alliance with drug smugglers,
providing protection for drug convoys and mounting attacks to keep
the government away and the poppy flourishing, the new governor of
Helmand, Muhammad Daud, said.

The threat of Taliban reprisals may be just another convenient excuse
farmers have thought up, said Col. Muhammad Ayub, the deputy police
chief of the province.

But there is little doubt that the Taliban and the drug smugglers
have a strong influence in the villages. One agricultural worker
employed on a program to develop alternative crops said he continued
to grow poppy on some of his land, otherwise the other villagers
would accuse him of working for the government.

The one bright spot is the work of agricultural aid organizations,
which are quietly persuading farmers to plant fruit trees and
vineyards on some of their land, drawing at least a percentage of
cultivated land away from poppy and providing work in rural areas to
ease widespread dependency on opium as the main cash earner.

But those efforts alone will not change things, said Muhammad Sardar,
who runs a rural recovery program for Mercy Corps. "It is government
policy and more local government involvement that is needed," he said.