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| Afghan poppy field (File Photo) |
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) -- With an AK-47 assault rifle slung casually over his shoulder, Allah Mohammad, while slashing an opium bulb with a vicious looking knife and extracting its milky nectar that seeps from the cuts, said that he thanks the chaos and ongoing militancy in Afghanistan as it allows him to grow poppies on his farm in the Ghorak district of the southern Kandahar province.
"The police in government-controlled areas don't allow the farmers to grow poppies, but in some areas like the Ghorak district where the government only has a loose grip, the farmers can cultivate poppies and run the easy, profitable business," Mohammad said recently.
"Planting opium poppies and converting the plant's nectar to heroin is a profitable business for the villagers here in Ghorak where government forces barely exist," the farmer said, adding that the farmers have gained experience in growing poppies and that is why they can earn three to four times more over the past few years than in the last decade.
Kandahar and the neighboring Helmand, Zabul and Uruzgan provinces where anti-government militants including the Taliban are active, are areas responsible for producing a major part of all opium poppies harvested in Afghanistan annually.
According to Mohammad, parts of the Ghorak, Miwand and Khakriz districts where security forces' presence is slim are suitable places for the farmers to grow poppies. Meanwhile, officials in Kandahar's provincial capital of Kandahar city have claimed that poppy cultivation has been eradicated in government-controlled areas.
Read the full story at Xinhua