Poppy-Farmers: Eradication is Unfair

Story Filed: Sunday, April 07, 2002 1:17 PM EDT

GHAR KILI, Afghanistan (AP) -- In a sun-baked field of poppy plants on the verge of flowering, poor farmers said Sunday that a government plan to eradicate the crop that produces opium, the raw material for heroin, would lead to their financial ruin.

Afghanistan was once a source of roughly 70 percent of the world's opium supply, and its new government has vowed to wipe out the poppy crop just two weeks ahead of its harvest, offering farmers about $500 an acre to destroy the narcotic-bearing flowers.

The government said its program is to start Monday, and that authorities will carry out the eradication if farmers do not comply.

But the laborers of Ghar Kili, 15 miles west of Kandahar, said the compensation offer would not cover their expenses, incurred late last year as the U.S. bombing campaign eroded Taliban authority.

"The government should come here and survey, and calculate how much we spent,'' said landowner Haji Abibullah. "If they pay us good money, and we don't lose out, then we'll personally eradicate it.''

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