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Afghan poppy farmers expect record opium crop and the Taliban will reap the rewards

by UK Independent (reposted)
Two hours' drive from the Afghan city of Kandahar, "the perfect storm" is about to break in the fields of Helmand province.
Here, in the place where British troops are to spend the next three years, a combination of factors have conspired to produce what is probably the biggest opium harvest in the history of a province that, last year, produced more than 20 per cent of the world's heroin on its own.

A law and order vacuum has allowed an increasingly well-organised drugs cartel, a corrupt local government and resurgent Taliban to structure the poppy cultivation of the province as never before. That has combined with fine growing conditions this year to produce what, if these were wine producers, might be considered a memorable vintage. And, country-wide it is now clear the poppy harvest will be close to record levels again. It is a dispiriting blow for the international counter-narcotics effort as 86 per cent of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan.

Among a gently swaying sea of poppy heads near the town of Grishk, Haji Shadi Khan, 50, squatted wearily on his haunches and drained a proffered bottle of water in a single draught.

The harvest began last week and it is brutally labour intensive and skilled work. Every one of thousands of poppy heads must be lightly scored with a four- bladed razor and then the opium "milk" that oozes forth scraped off and collected.

Depending on the quality of the crop, the operation must be repeated between three and seven times. Behind him in the field, his sons Gul Ahmed, 10 and Juma Jan, seven, were hard at work. Small boys have the advantage of working at the same height as the poppy heads.

Though he is only a paid labourer and does not own the land he is working, Haji Shadi expects to make about $1,800 (£1,000). That represents one-third of the value of the crop on a plot that is four-fifths of a hectare.

In April, a UN rapid assessment that sought only to estimate broad trends in poppy cultivation offered an alarming picture of likely production when it suggested cultivation was down in only three of Afghanistan's 36 provinces and was increasing or strongly increasing in 13.

That left the British-led counter-narcotics effort relying on a massive eradication effort to make an inroad into the Afghan poppy crop. However, in the south at least, efforts at eradication appear to have largely failed.

Haji Shadi chuckled merrily as he described how the provincial governor's eradication team arrived at his fields, enjoyed a convivial cup of tea and then left again with a wink, $50 richer. $50 is a month's wages for most government employees.

An estimated 40,000 to 50,000 hectares of poppy are being cultivated in Helmand this year, at least a 50 per cent increase on last year. The governor of Helmand, Engineer Mohammed Daoud, claims to have eradicated 7,000 hectares of poppy this year. But even that modest claim is disputed.

"The real figure is about 1,000 hectares," one Western source said. "The district elders just followed the eradication teams around handing out wads of money. Sometimes the teams just drove a single tractor through the field and announced that they had eradicated it."

More
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article363606.ece
by TW
...must be happier'n pigs in shit!
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