Afghan poppies fear not

A decline in Afghanistan's opium poppy cultivation is highly unlikely due to the lack of viable eradication methods, a lack of alternative livelihoods and the presence of the Taliban in cultivating provinces.

According to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report , Afghanistan cultivated 193,000 hectares of opium poppy in 2007, an increase of 17 percent from 2006 or over 93 percent of the world's poppy supply.

The amount of land under cultivation is greater than the amount used to cultivate coca in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia combined. Approximately 80 percent of the total cultivation is located in the country's southernmost provinces, including Kandahar, Nimroz and Farah, with Helmand Province responsible for nearly half.

The poppy industry is a major part of Afghanistan's total economy as opium exports generated US$4 billion in 2007, 29 percent more than in 2006, a figure representing over half of the country's GDP.

The financial impact of poppy growth that trickles down to the individual level as financial gain is likely a main factor in the decision of Afghan farmers to grow poppy for opium versus traditional crops. For example, a farmer can earn US$2,000 for an acre of poppies compared to just US$220 for wheat.

Domestic laboratories convert most of the poppy cultivated in Afghanistan into heroin. As the price of heroin skyrockets, traffickers move the product away from Afghanistan. The wholesale cost of a gram of heroin costs US$2.50 in Afghanistan, US$3.50 in neighboring Pakistan and Iran, US$8 in Turkey, US$22 in Germany and US$33 in Russia. The street cost can be ten times higher than this wholesale cost.

The most discussed and debated eradication method is aerial chemical spraying. Parts of the US government, including the White House, State Department and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), favor such aggressive action, while the Afghan government, British government, NATO, the Pentagon, CIA and US military strongly oppose this measure.

Afghanistan's UN Ambassador Zahir Tanin opposes aerial spraying in order to avoid alienation of three million people involved in the poppy industry and to maintain government stability. Other concerns from the Afghan government include the possibility of harming legal subsistence crops grown alongside poppies and contaminating drinking water.

Chemical eradication will likely lead to a decrease in support for the Karzai administration while increasing support for the Taliban insurgency, which receives funding from the poppy industry.

This result is supported by a test from 2004, in which the US gauged public reaction to aerial spraying by secretly contracting planes to dust poppy fields with plastic granules. The action led to strong public objection from farmers, tribal chiefs and high-level government officials.

Providing alternative livelihoods is necessary to achieve significant reduction or complete elimination of opium poppy in Afghanistan. Former interior minister Ali Jalali says that many farmers are ashamed to grow poppies, but have little choice as there is no other source of income to support their families.

However, investing in the exploitation of Afghanistan's rich natural resources would likely create tens of thousands of new jobs. Afghan Minister of Mines, Mohamad Ibrahim Adel says 95 percent of the country's natural wealth remains untapped.

For example, Afghanistan has world-class mineral reserves including the Aynak copper deposit located some 30 kilometers south of the capital Kabul in eastern Afghanistan. The deposit contains 240 million tonnes of copper, which could be mined for a profit of anywhere from US$100 million to USD 300 million annually. The Afghan government has accepted bids from nine companies worldwide to mine Aynak. The Economist magazine predicts t