Good harvest foils Kabul efforts to cut opium production

Afghan farmers cut back plantings of opium poppies by a fifth this year, but a good harvest resulted in opium production being little changed, according to the latest United Nations figures....

It would take years to end the country's reliance on opium, which generates half its national income, [Antonio Maria] Costa [executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)] said. Afghanistan accounts for 87 per cent of the world's supply of the drug....

UNODC is calling for the removal of corrupt governors and civil servants, a "zero-tolerance" policy for warlords involved in drug refining and trafficking, and the renunciation of drug cultivation as a condition for farming communities to receive development aid....

Mr Costa urged the international community to stump up more cash for rural development projects to give farmers viable alternatives to poppy growing. "Crop destruction must be supported by assistance to farmers," he said.

Although in some Afghan provinces such as Nangarhar, drug cultivation had "all but disappeared", it had increased this year in others,including Kandahar, Nimroz and Farah....

--Financial Times

Gosh, I guess this little exchange at the White House in May didn't turn the tide:

PRESIDENT BUSH: ... One of the interesting issues, however, besides poppy crop eradication, and frankly, bringing people to justice who are running drugs is to -- is for crop substitution. And the -- President Karzai was talking about how the quality of the pomegranate that used to be grown in Afghanistan, evidently it's quite famous for -- the country is quite famous for growing pomegranates.

PRESIDENT KARZAI: Yes, yes.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Or honeydew melons. In other words, there are some specialty crops, along with wheat and corn, that can and should be grown in Afghanistan. We look forward to working -- the President brought his Agricultural Minister with him, and we look forward to working on this aspect of economic development. After all, Afghanistan has had a long history of farming. And we can do -- we can do a lot to help the farmers get back on their feet and diversify away from poppies.

Oh yeah, I'm sure enough pomegranates and honeydew melons can be grown in Afghanistan to generate half the country's national income.