Opium Trade Not Easily Uprooted, Afghanistan Finds

One reason for the increase in Balkh and other areas, according to one U.S. counter-narcotics official, was that both local and central government authorities lacked the will and the means to mount serious crop eradication programs in places where farmers had ignored their pleas not to plant.

The extra money for farmers and law enforcement was passed by the U.S. Congress only a month ago, so very little has been spent. Even though eradication work was supposed to begin in February, the official said, it did not start until April, because of funding delays and "resistance from influential figures in government."

Even when the program got underway, farmers in Balkh said, it was spotty and corrupt or nonexistent.

Of seven farmers interviewed in Langar Khana, only three, who owned fields beside the main road from the provincial capital, Mazar-e Sharif, said they had faced any threat of eradication. Two, who said they did not have cash to pay a bribe, lost their crops.

One grower, Mohammed Asef, 34, found another solution. When a team of local police started approaching the high mud walls concealing a small patch where he was growing poppies, Asef said, he gave them directions to other poppy fields cultivated by farmers from a village several miles away.

In one corner of Asef's walled field, an enormous heap of harvested poppy stalks was drying in the sun, their bulbs marked with tiny slits to draw out opium sap.

Like many farmers, Asef said he had no choice but to grow poppy. His other crops, such as cotton and melons, fetch only a fraction of poppy's price -- far less than he requires to support his wife and six children.

Villagers also said they had seen no sign of the foreign aid promised to farmers in exchange for cutting back on poppy cultivation. Langar Khana still has no running water or electric power and has only tents in place of a school, they noted.

Meanwhile, the proceeds from poppy Asef grew last year have bought him far more than survival. A few steps from his old two-room mud house, he has already built a solid, new three-room structure.

In the yard are two fighting pheasants, a major investment, costing $19 each. Asef said he dotes on them like children, dicing almonds into tiny bits and catching grasshoppers at night to feed them.

"I've wanted a pheasant since I was a boy," said Asef, his blue eyes shining with pleasure. "But this is the first time in my life I could afford them. I'm so happy."

A few miles north, villagers in the hamlet of Sayed Abad were in less cheerful spirits. Five said they had poppy fields next to the main road that had been eradicated.