AFGHAN POPPY FARMERS WORRY FOR FUTURE

Baghi Gul, angrily shouting "Go away, go away," tries to tell a
wandering camel to stop chewing up his poppy fields. But like
thousands of poor farmers around the country, he and his lucrative
crop is also facing another enemy he is helpless to stop: the government.

Acting on orders from President Hamid Karzai to destroy the narcotics
crop in the country, soldiers Thursday began eradicating poppy fields
in eastern Nangarhar province.

The government wants to destroy some eight to 10 per cent of the crops
and the farmers will be allowed to harvest the rest.

After watching some of his crop, which is used to produce opium, be
wiped out by soldiers wielding clubs against his poppy bulbs, barefoot
Baghi Gul is resigned to the hardship. "This is a great loss for me,"
the 45-year-old says. "But it is an order from the government which I
have to obey."

UN officials have said that the thriving drugs trade threatens to turn
the country into a failed narco-state while the government believes it
could further worsen security in the war-wracked nation.

It is widely acknowledged that while the crop is the best earner for
farmers making them US$ 2,000 per jureeb of land (a fifth of a
hectare, half an acre) farmed, they see nothing like the profits drug
lords and others make from trafficking the illicit substances.

Most farmers are still poor and live subsistent lives. "If the
government could not find us other sources we will cultivate poppy
again," one farmer said.

"We know opium is 'haram' (forbidden) but in critical situations,
Islam allows you to do every possible thing for your survival," said
tribal chief and landlord Malak Noor Khan in Behsood district, some 25
kilometers north of Jalalabad.

"When you are hungry nothing is haram," he said. "Our farmers are
hungry, they struggle for survival."