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.
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