AFGHAN FARMERS HAVE FEW ALTERNATIVES TO OPIUM

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - It is not just Western heroin addicts who depend on
Afghanistan's opium. For the country's impoverished farmers, deep in debt
and blighted by drought, poppy growing is often the only means of survival.

In southern Afghanistan, which produces around 65 percent of the country's
opium, around a million farmers were dependent on opium production until
Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar decreed a ban on poppy
cultivation in 2000.

The ban eased the flow of drugs to the West but its impact on the rural
population was disastrous. More than half a million agricultural labourers
in southern Afghanistan lost their jobs. Farmers who had borrowed money to
cope with the drought that has gripped the region found themselves unable
to repay their debts.

It is little wonder they are now growing poppy again.

Cultivation restarted after the Taliban regime was driven from power, and
the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) estimates that unless
there is immediate intervention, output this year will be at the same level
as before the ban.

The new Kandahar regional government, led by warlord Gul Agha, says it will
launch a spring offensive to destroy poppy fields and stamp out
cultivation. But unless farmers receive emergency help, the country's
humanitarian crisis will worsen.

"We will not tolerate drugs. We have warned farmers not to grow poppy,"
Kandahar police chief Jamal Akram told Reuters. "But we need help from the
rest of the world for our farmers."

The Kandahar government says it is against paying farmers compensation not
to cultivate poppy fields. But it wants help for them to grow alternative
crops.

Bleak Prospects

The region's agricultural prospects, however, are bleak.

Kandahar lies in an oasis and is famous for its fruit, but the drought
dried up key rivers in the region and cereal crops failed year after year.

The poppy crop, hardier than cereals, fared better, and was a crucial plank
of the rural economy.

Afghanistan produced about 3,300 tonnes of raw opium in 2000, worth $98
million at farm-gate prices and countless times more once it was refined
and exported. Day labourers in opium fields received three times the wage
of those in wheat fields.

Leslie Oqvist, U.N. co-ordinator for southern Afghanistan, says
humanitarian agencies are drawing up a strategy to support farmers and
labourers who have no other means to survive.

Priorities include repair of irrigation systems, provision of improved
seeds and fertiliser, micro-credit for impoverished farmers and assistance
with market access.

"We are working on it right now," Oqvist told Reuters. "We need a
comprehensive strategy to provide sustainable alternatives to poppy
cultivation."

Even farmers who cultivate cereals are struggling to feed themselves, as
their entire crop is taken to repay the debts they have accumulated. They
need immediate assistance.

Drug Bazaars And Mobile Laboratories

At the height of Afghanistan's poppy output, before the Taliban's 2000
edict, Sangin bazaar in Helmand province to the west of Kandahar was the
country's largest drugs market, where opium was bought and sold openly in
large quantities.

Opium was refined in mobile laboratories in remote areas, and though a
number have been destroyed since 2000, many remain.

Drug control officials fear Sangin bazaar could soon be thriving again,
exporting its deadly merchandise to the West.

Wheat and cotton are the most widely touted alternatives to poppy for local
farmers. But to flourish, production would need far more rain than the
region has received, and large-scale improvement of irrigation facilities
across the region.

Humanitarian agencies say that as well as rebuilding the rural
infrastructure, credit must be offered to local farmers to help them escape
the debt trap. Many farmers are in debt to local drug lords who are
demanding they grow poppy.

"It is not too late," Oqvist said. "The poppy crop will not be harvested
until the spring. Once it is destroyed people will be at risk, and what we
have to do is ensure that we can help those people to survive."

U.S president George Bush on Monday gave Afghanistan a waiver from a
narcotics blacklist in the interests of national security. Countries on the
blacklist ordinarily do not receive aid from Washington.