Deadly trade in poppies offers lifeline for farmers

Ahman Azim stands in mud-caked shoes in his freshly ploughed field in east Afghanistan. He runs his fingers through small seeds gathered in the front of his ragged traditional Shalmar Kameez.

With his two young sons by his side, Azim spreads the seed across soft clumps of newly broken ground using an expert flick of his wrist.

"These seeds could mean the difference between life and death for my family," the 40-year-old rugged-faced farmer says. "They will ensure I can put food on the table and clothes on our backs next year."

While these innocent-looking white seeds will provide a lifeline for Azim, his wife and nine children, they will ultimately result in the deaths of many others.

The effect of their planting will be felt across Europe and the US next year. They are poppy seeds, whose lethal harvest will eventually be used to produce heroin.

Azim is a peasant sharecropper in Sultan Pur village outside Jalalabad. Two weeks ago he planned to sow wheat and vegetables in his humble plot. He had stopped planting opium poppies after the Taliban banned the golden harvest last year. Almost immediately, Afghanistan went from producing 70 per cent of the world's heroin to almost zero production.

But the Taliban has fled Jalalabad. Azim and thousands of farmers across Afghanistan have swapped their wheat seeds for poppy seeds. This war-torn country is once again about to become a major player in the global heroin market.

"When the Taliban banned opium last year, my income dropped 90 per cent," said Azim. "My family were hungry and there was no money to buy goods. All of the farmers in this area are planting poppy again. We are happy that we will have money next summer."

Khalid Azir is the owner of this land, which he has rented to eight local peasants. The deal is worthwhile. He will get half the sale of the poppy seeds from his tenants when they harvest in five months time.

If the crop is good, the farmers will make $300 next year, enough to provide for a large family.

The landowner says he is not happy about having his land used for opium production, but there is no choice.

"I am an educated person. I know what we are doing. It is negative and against human beings. But there are no job opportunities for the people here ."

He said the UN and the EU must help the people of Afghanistan to stand on their own feet and rebuild the country. "Then our economic circumstances will improve and there will be no need to cultivate poppies."

Azim brought his poppy seeds in the market in Jalalabad. With the help of his sons Omar and Abdul, he ploughed his field. In five months' time, his small plot will have beautiful red and yellow flowering poppies.

During his harvest, he will employ five men. The crop will be sold to an agent who will pass it on to heroin production factories across the border in Pakistan.

His neighbour, Hammid Ullah, explains how poppy seeds are easy to cultivate in this dry country, where there has been a drought for three years.

'You do not need much water, and the seeds are cheap to buy. It is our lifeline" he said. "A lot of aid gets to this country but never reaches the people who need it. If it did, we would not have to do this.

While opium production stopped after the Taliban's ban, it is suspected that the Taliban held massive opium stockpiles from previous years. Nor did they stop traffickers bringing it over the border to Pakistan.

The chairman of the US Government Reform sub-committee on drug policy said recently that the ban was a "coldly calculated ploy to control the world market price for their opium and heroin".

In September, the sub-committee heard that opium was providing the Taliban with up to $50 million a year, with Osama bin Laden's notorious al-Qaeda organisation benefiting indirectly because it has been protected by the Taliban.

Following the September 11th attacks, the Taliban began dumping its stockpiles. Opium prices in the region suddenly plummeted from $746 a kilogram to $95 immediately after the attacks. It has since bounced back to more than $400.

Heroin is smuggled over the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan through the North West Frontier Province and the southern Baluchistan Province.

In Pakistan, the effect of Afghanistan heroin trade is evident on the streets. In the border towns of Quetta and Peshawar, addicts "chase the dragon" and smoke heroin openly.

A heroin fix is as cheap as 20p. With opium production resuming in Afghanistan, the price of heroin is set to go down.

There are now an estimated three million heroin addicts in Pakistan, and the figure is rising. It is money from this lethal business that helped fund the operations of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.

The people in Sultan Pur village don't care about where their crop will end up next year. As long as it keeps bread on their table.