Pubdate: Wed, 29 May 2002 Source: Reuters (Wire) Copyright: 2002 Reuters Limited Author: Louis Charbonneau U.N. OFFERS CREDIT TO AFGHAN FARMERS TO DROP OPIUM VIENNA (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Wednesday it was sponsoring a program of small loans for farmers in war-ravaged Afghanistan to give them an economic incentive not to produce opium. Afghanistan was the world's top producer of opium, the source of heroin, until the former Taliban regime banned its cultivation two years ago. But it continues to be a major producer because many poor farmers see little reason to give up the lucrative opium poppy and production has sprung back since the Taliban were ousted by a U.S.-led offensive last year. "In Afghanistan, the chain of narcotics cultivation, production, refining and export, starts with the farmers and the very simple process of borrowing money from narcotics traders to grow poppies," the U.N. Vienna office's new Director-General Antonio Maria Costa told reporters. Costa, who also heads the U.N.'s Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP), said the program of offering small credits to farmers who grow legal crops other than poppies would be in place before the next planting season. "We are trying to use the laws of economics to undermine the narcotics trade from inside," said Costa, who was Secretary-General of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) before starting at his new post on May 7. The EBRD successfully implemented a similar program developed in Bosnia after the war there, he said. "The micro-credits (were used in Bosnia) to trigger a process of reconstruction -- of all the houses destroyed, all the stocks of cattle and seeds needed to relaunch agriculture." Costa said the program, which the Asian Development Bank would support, would model itself on current local lending practices, whereby clan leaders often arrange loans for farmers interested in growing opium. "We want to offer the farmers an alternative to their cash requirements prior to planting," he said. "We want to attack the problem at the source, at the roots." He also said that the interim Afghan government's program of eradicating opium poppy crops appeared to have been successful, though he said it was difficult to give precise figures. "Our impression is that the eradication program has been successful to the extent that you can imagine and hope that it would be successful," he said, adding that up to a third of the suspected cultivation area might have been eradicated. In February, the U.N. Drug Control Program (UNDCP) said some 45,000 to 65,000 hectares of opium poppy could have been planted for the season with a potential yield of up to 2,700 tons, enough to make it again the world's top opium producer. - --- MAP posted-by: Josh