I like these lines best:

"At the moment, Afghan farmers have no other way to feed their families," MacDonald said.

Southern Afghanistan's economy is primarily based on agriculture and people are desperately poor and short of food, she said.

Fucking think tanks. Useless academic boneheads. Perhaps the tank could call for, I don't know, farmers to grow food for themselves and the rest of the country? How much of the international aide could be diverted from NGOs, and think tanks, to pay Afgan farmers to grow food? If poppies and pot and "artemisinia" can be grown then surely food can be as well.

I have talked to NGOs trying to have Afghan farmers grow wheat and corn, the NGOs say it is impossible for food corps such as wheat to grow in places like Kandahar province until the irrigation systems are repair and soil condition improve.

People buy more food from the money they make from selling poppies than they could ever possibly grow. They grow poppies because it is the simplest way to provide for their families.

Why work long hard hours growing food crops when you can do less work for growing poppies?

I think the children in rural areas have a better life overall.

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Growing poppies is very simple compared to other cash crops. The poppy grows like a weed, requires little water or attention.

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But that makes it very easy then for farmers to move and pick up farming again in another location because the crop grows like a weed, right?

I mean, if you are a farmer in a war zone, would you farm a lucrative crop that can be grown anywhere and needs little care and for which there is a ready black market and security, or would you grow a crop that needs to be tended, doesn't grow like a weed wherever you need it, and provides much less income without hardly any security?

Why don't we ever give third world people credit for being human with the ingenuity to make decisions in their own best interest?

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Originally posted by Fidel:
Cash crop capitalism and poverty go hand in hand.

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Yep.

And an economic policy of market socialism, based on a non-authoritarian, non-puritanical social policy, can alleviate the mass poverty.

But it's catastrophically *not permitted* by the ruthless, omnipotent, brutally & murderously immoral, imperialistic Pentagonal hammer, which is a rampaging military-industrial-prison complex monster of destructionism.

Yet many oblivious North Americans spout rhetoric & propaganda in FAVOR of continuing the monstrous rampage.

Regressive insanity vs. progressive solutions.

But these type of proposed programs tend to attract attention and funding (gasp, investment). The easiest way to alleviate hungry FARMERS in Afganistan would be to pay the people to grow food. But I presume any funding or aid would be tied to the production of a commodity that has, get this, value.

It's complete bullshit to say that poppies are worth than wheat when people are hungry. Food is a necessity. I assume the Afgans can feed themselves by growing crops, but the problem is likely that they have no cash coming in. It's the old can't afford to grow food argument, which is an absurd situation that I'm quite familiar with.

And I really doubt that the poppy and pot farmers are getting a good\fair dollar for their crops. The farmer always gets screwed. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that the regional warlords are forcing people to grow poppies in place of food, because they can make scads of money punting a drug that's in strong demand.

Create large scale cooperatives to grow food for domestic consumption and allow profit-sharing incentives for common farmhands. Afghans need a way of supporting themselves and to focus on literacy for the next generations of Afghans. And just as important is that they protect domestic farmers from foreign imports subsidized by western governments. This has worked in what were third and fourth world countries which were devastated during WWII and have since come to be known as Asia's tiger economies.

If there was security I would grow a crop such as corn or wheat.

Farmpunk

I agree with what you say however I doubt the average Afghan farmer can grow enough food to feed his family let alone feed other people out his family group.

The soil condition and irrigation systems are not able to produce that amount of crop production at this time.

Afghanistan does not have the capability at this time to feed itself.

Fidel

Excellent points and I am in agreement.

Jas

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If there was security I would grow a crop such as corn or wheat.

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I do not believe the security factor plays a large role in the reason for growing poppies.

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Originally posted by Farmpunk:
The point is not about legalizing opium. The point, I think, is that Afgan farmers and the Afgani people should not be hungry when they have the capability of feeding themselves, with a bare minimum of international aide.

If opium was legalized, then everyone would grow it and it would end up being essentially worthless. And the Afgani people would still be hungry. There is no interest in legalizing opium.

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There is no need to go to mutually exclusive extremes. Food crops could make up the vast majority, while opium & cannabis crops could make up a small but significant minority.

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I do not believe the security factor plays a large role in the reason for growing poppies.

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I would grow the poppy crop, if I was located in a war zone

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What is Afghanistan if not a war zone?

And, you said:

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If there was security I would grow a crop such as corn or wheat.

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And now you say you don't think security is much of a factor? Of course it is. It is probably the factor in most cases.

Suitability for growing food is there.

Drought, I can understand. Lack of irrigation and agricultural infrastructure, I can understand. What I can't understand is why anyone would suggest that the farmers even attemtpt to grow non-food crops when the citizens are hungry.

The capacity was there: another food link.

I would grow poppies in order to provide for my family. As I stated earlier I believe the Afghans grow poppies out necessity to feed their families, this has nothing to do with security, it all has to do with the lack of infrastructure in place to assist with the growing of cash crops.

The vast majority of land in Afghanistan can not produce cash crops such as wheat or corn. If I remember correctly, Afghanistan has always imported a large amount of foodstuffs, much of the food entering Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1970s came from the USSR in return for access to natural resources.

Farmpunk

If there was the infrastructure was in place I am sure more farmers would grow food for their families and neighbors.

"Many thanks for your mail. From the agricultural experts we have spoken to we understand the following:

All the agricultural products (including wheat) require water. Sadly, Afghanistan has experienced severe drought in the past few years, meaning they no longer have the ability to grow the same crops as they did before.

The vast majority of Afghanistan’s orchards and vineyards were destroyed during the war so it would take many years for them to beat the point of production again

There have been several efforts to put in irrigation canals and bring back the old crops, but these have been unsuccessful thus far. If they do work, it would take a number of years until they would be able to produce again.

Poppy is one of the few crops that requires little water, which is why all the farmers rely on it so much."

Now what I need to do is find out the water requirements of wheat. I wonder how much annual percipitation the plains on Canada get?

Abetted by an idiotic US anti-drug strategy and fueled by the corrupt proceeds of milking the western governments' aid contributions, the Karzai government's more venal members enjoy an embarassment of riches. Legalising poppy production in this environment is impossible.

Interesting link here, about food, poppies, and watering demands: Tasmanian food and legal drugs.

From what I can read out of that is that poppies, under modern ag practices, need five inches of irrigation while they fruit (generic term), while the same farmer only irrigates his grain\food crops an inch.