AFGHANISTAN CHURNED OUT 2,500 TONS OF OPIUM POPPY THIS YEAR

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan secured its place among the world's top
producers of opium this year, churning out about 2,500 tons of opium poppy
despite a government ban on the crop, the U.N. special representative to
Afghanistan said Thursday.

Lakhdar Brahimi said putting a stop to production was a difficult task made
harder by the fact that many farmers rely on sales of opium to feed their
families.

"Preliminary assessments have projected this year's opium poppy crop at
around 2,500 tons," Brahimi said at the start of an anti-drug conference in
Kabul.

"I think it is inevitable that the harvest will maintain Afghanistan's
place at the top of the poppy exporting countries."

President Hamid Karzai's government began a nationwide eradication program
in April, offering farmers $500 per acre of destroyed poppy.

The money offered little incentive to farmers, who can earn as much as
$6,400 per acre for poppy, according to U.N. estimates. U.N. experts said
in August that Karzai's government had largely failed in its effort to
destroy the crop.

On Wednesday, authorities in Kabul destroyed 5,500 pounds of hashish and
raw opium in a bonfire - a public warning intended to show the government
was serious on cracking down on drug trafficking.

The former Taliban regime banned poppy cultivation in 2000, but Afghan
farmers began to plant the crop again after the Taliban were ousted last
year by U.S. air power and Afghan opposition troops.

Brahimi said battling the drug trade was "a long-term endeavor."

"It will take time to build institutions, time for the economy itself to
become strong enough to offer alternative livelihoods to farmers," Brahimi said.