GIRDI GHOUS, Afghanistan -- Shah Mahmoud smiled ruefully as he surveyed the snow-speckled fields stretching beyond the mud walls of his village. In drought-plagued Nangahar province, a rare snowfall would normally augur a bumper crop for the many opium poppy farmers among his people. But on acre after acre, the green shoots poking through the soil were not fat poppy buds but delicate sprigs of wheat.
"I made the decision this season that it would be forbidden to plant poppy," said Mahmoud, whose edicts as the area's traditional chief, or malek, carry more weight with the 30,000 members of his community than any government law. "So none of us did. Now I'm not so happy about that."
Mohammad Samim, a farmer, fertilizes wheat in fields near the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad. Like many of his countrymen, he used to grow opium poppies.
(Emilio Morenatti -- AP)
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Across Afghanistan, government officials and foreign aid workers who monitor poppy cultivation have reached a remarkable conclusion: One year after Afghan farmers planted the largest amount of poppy in their nation's history and provided the world with nearly 90 percent of its opium supply, many of them have stopped growing it.
Poppy farming, officials said, may have declined by as much as 70 percent in three provinces that together account for more than half of Afghanistan's production: Nangahar in the east, Helmand in the south and Badakhshan in the north.
In Nangahar, where last spring poppies bloomed all along the main road from the provincial capital, Jalalabad, to the Pakistani border, the contrast today is striking.
"I visited 16 out of 22 districts and I couldn't find a single plant of poppy," marveled Mirwais Yasini, head of the Afghan government's counter-narcotics directorate. "It was all wheat."
Several factors may be responsible, including a drop in opium prices after the previous banner harvest, and a reluctance to plant among farmers whose crops were destroyed last season by disease or the police.
Afghan officials, however, claim the news vindicates President Hamid Karzai's decision to reject an anti-poppy aerial spraying campaign, which had been promoted by the U.S. government, in favor of a more consensus-based "Afghan solution."
Karzai voiced concerns that spraying would cause health and environmental problems and antagonize farmers; several foreign nonprofit aid groups here also opposed the idea. Instead, the president used appeals to national and religious pride, the promise of international aid and the threat of crop destruction to persuade hundreds of village and tribal leaders such as Mahmoud to curb poppy cultivation voluntarily.
Yet the very success of this new policy also creates tremendous challenges in a nation where opium cultivation and trafficking made up more than a third of the economy last year and sustained many thousands of poor rural families.
"People will need other sources of income as soon as possible, or we'll be the witness to a big disaster. People may even face starvation," said Gen. Muhammad Daoud, deputy interior minister in charge of counter-narcotics.
U.S. military officials said they plan to conduct aerial surveillance soon to verify reports that poppy crops have been reduced. In December, the top commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, reportedly warned visiting officials, including Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, that drug lords were expanding their influence in the Afghan government and could form ties with Taliban fighters.
But Col. David Lamm, chief of staff for the U.S. military command in Afghanistan, said he was optimistic that Kabul's assertions of progress in reducing poppy production would prove true. "Can you put it under your mattress and let the price go up? Yes," he said, but he added that since Karzai told farmers not to plant, "they are not planting."
International donors have pledged millions to help Afghanistan combat drugs this year; the United States pledged about $780 million. About $120 million of the U.S. assistance package has been earmarked for work on irrigation canals, to improve roads, to create micro-credit systems, and to obtain better seeds and fertilizers so poppy workers can make a living from other crops and industries.
