Afghans Vow to Destroy Poppy Fields

The fragile new Afghan government took on a daunting political and logistical challenge Thursday, vowing to eliminate the Afghan poppy crop, source of perhaps 70% of the world’s opium and of much of this impoverished country’s income.

Just two weeks from the harvest of the plants, which are used in the production of heroin, the government said it would offer farmers about $500 an acre to destroy crops--a fraction of what they can earn by selling the opium the plants yield.

If farmers don’t tear up their crops, joint task forces of national, provincial and local authorities will do it for them, senior government advisor Ashraf Ghani Amatzai said.

Not only do tens of thousands of Afghan farmers and harvest workers depend on the trade, but opium dealers are believed to be associated with some Afghan warlords and other influential figures.

Ghani Amatzai said the government would not hesitate to use force. “We hope we don’t reach that point, but the Ministry of the Interior is fully engaged to make sure it is carried out,” he said.

“Continuation of drug cultivation and trafficking will endanger our ability to restore our good name and receive support as a legitimate partner of the international community,” interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai said in a decree.

Starting Monday, the decree said, farmers will be offered $250 per jirib of poppy, an Afghan land measure equaling about half an acre. Poppy farmers this growing season have said they expect at least $1,700 per jirib of opium.

Ghani Amatzai said the harvest in the southern province of Helmand, Afghanistan’s biggest opium producer, will begin in about two weeks.

The extremist government of the Taliban had successfully banned poppy cultivation in 2000, eliminating an estimated 96% of the 2001 crop. But as the hard-line regime fell last fall, farmers quickly planted poppies for the spring harvest, believing that any new government would be too weak to enforce a ban.

The Karzai administration, encouraged by the U.N. Drug Control Program, announced a ban on poppy cultivation in January, but that was long after the seeds were in the ground.

Ghani Amatzai said the government would immediately institute a program of labor-intensive projects, especially on roads and irrigation systems, to help employ farm laborers.