Poverty not key factor for Afghan drug crop The Peninsula - World News Web posted at: 3/16/2008 Source : Reuters KABUL Afghan poppy farmers are some of the richest in the country, so poverty is not a big factor driving drug production in Afghanistan which last year produced 93 percent of the worlds opium, a United Nations report said. Despite millions of dollars spent to eradicate the crop and encourage farmers to turn to others, opium production has risen sharply since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the hardline Islamist Taliban government in 2001. But some of the poorest Afghan farmers do not grow the poppies from which opium is produced, while those on some of the richest farmland are the biggest producers of the drug which is processed to make heroin and exported to the West. Poverty does not appear to have been the main driving factor in the expansion of opium cultivation in recent years, said a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). There is no evidence that opium poppy cultivation is the choice of the poorest of the poor farmers, it said. While it is difficult to measure income in Afghanistan, especially in the most insecure areas affected by the Taliban insurgency, the UNODC study looked at farmers key assets. The southern province of Helmand, which produces around 70 percent of Afghanistans drug crop, has the countrys highest level of car and motorcycle ownership and the second highest ownership of trucks, combine harvesters and tractors. It appears that the wealthier provinces were actually more likely to cultivate opium than the poorer ones, the report said. The biggest factor in whether farmers grow opium is the level of Taliban insurgency. Helmand is a largely desert province intersected by a broad river running from mountains in the north which feeds a strip of lush farmland, once Afghanistans breadbasket but now a region that alone grows nearly half the worlds opium. Afghan and mostly British forces are engaged in almost daily battles trying to wrest control of the string of towns and villages along Helmands fertile strip from Taliban insurgents. Forty-four percent of Helmand households said their economic situation had improved in the last year, compared to 27 percent nationwide, the UNODC said. More than 6,000 people were killed in Afghanistan last year as the Taliban fought a guerrilla war against Afghan and international troops and launched some 140 suicide bombs attacks across the country in their campaign to topple the pro-Western Afghan government and eject foreign forces. HENDRICKS & ASSOCIATES 1853 Summerlands Cr. Orleans, Ontario Canada K1E 2Y3 Tel: (613) 824-7831 Fax: (613) 824-8653 Skype: larry.hendricks
Forum