(This is part 3 of an 8-part series.)

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), opium cultivation generates approximately $5,385 per hectare, while irrigated wheat generates $575 per hectare and rain-fed wheat approximately $282 per hectare. Growing opium can make a farmer rich by Afghan standards, where estimates of the average annual per capita income is less than $1,000 and over half the population lives below the poverty line.

About a year ago the average annual cash income of farmers growing opium poppy was $3,933, 42 percent higher than the $2,279 average for non-opium poppy growing farmers.

About 80 percent of the Afghan labor force works in agriculture, the other 20 percent are split evenly between industry and services. UNODC surveys of Afghan farmers show that poverty and financial considerations, such as obtaining a loan for food, clothing, and other essentials or financing a wedding or medical procedure, are the primary reasons given for growing opium. In most of the world's poppy growing areas, traditional banking and alternative methods of finance are unavailable.

In Afghanistan some prosperous merchants and opium traders provide credit, known as "salaam", to farmers who are dealing with an acute financial crisis or chronic poverty. The amount of money advanced is generally half the current market value of the crop that is being offered as payment.

Opium is the crop of choice for lenders because the demand and price are more consistent than wheat; they'll make a better return on their investment. An Afghan farmer who wants a loan to grow legal crops will probably leave empty-handed. The agreed upon quantity of opium will be delivered promptly to the lender upon harvest.

Poverty stricken farmers often sell their entire crop prior to harvest for 50 percent of its potential market value, using the money to buy food, clothing, and other essentials, including additional laborers to help in harvesting the opium.

A recent UNODC survey of villages growing opium showed that about one-third of them received cash advances on their crop, enabling wealthy drug lords, who ignore the Koran's ban on "riba", the charging of interest in exchange for a loan – to effectively earn 100 percent interest on their money. If the farmer is unable to deliver the crop for any reason, they may have to sell their land or their daughters to cover the debt.

Poppy cultivation can be up to 10 times more labor intensive than growing wheat. Individual poppies ripen at different times and each pod must be lanced several times to gather all of the opium. This requires workers to make several passes over the same fields, working long hours under the hot sun. In a country where one-third of the workforce is unemployed and another third, underemployed, poppy farming provides much-needed jobs, including rare opportunities for women to earn money by working the fields.

According to the UNODC, about 3.3 million Afghans work in poppy fields, 14.3 percent of Afghanistan's 23.8 million population. There are also Pakistanis working in the Afghan opium fields, in addition to Afghans working in other facets of the drug trade.

Poppy laborers in Helmand and other volatile provinces can earn $15 a day, about twice what they make in stable areas. The combination of high wages and increased cultivation has attracted migrant Afghan farmers from neighboring regions. Opium cultivation also offers the opportunity for thousands of Afghans with little of no land holdings to earn a living by sharecropping fields. These desperate souls are exploited by wealthy landowners who typically take one-half to two-thirds of the opium crop in spite of the fact that the labor, which is approximately 70 percent to 80 percent of the cost of growing opium, is provided or paid for by the sharecropper and his family.

It is imperative to wean the population from drug traffickers by supplying sustainable alternative sources of agriculture, employment, and loans. Securing the country and rebuilding the infrastructure is essential to future stability, which is why the Taliban have attempted to destroy or disrupt every humanitarian program and construction project that helps the people of Afghanistan.

Price supports should be initiated for several years to encourage farmers to grow legal crops by guaranteeing a fair and stable price. These artificial price increases should not be so high that they encourage Pakistani and other contiguous state farmers to bring their crops into Afghanistan to obtain additional profits.

Establishing a national banking system that provides low cost loans to farmers is one of the single most important steps that can be taken to help eradicate opium poppy. These loans would be available to farmers who agree not to grow opium, soundly breaking their primary ties to drug traffickers and the Taliban, the salaam system.

"You realize the importance of replacing the salaam system," said the UNODC's executive director, Antonio Maria Costa. "Micro lending is a very powerful instrument promoting development, and in the case of Afghanistan, it will help the farmers break the bonds of the traffickers."

Low-cost loan programs would vastly improve the plight of the poor and raise their overall standard of living. Government loans would enable poverty-stricken farmers to be paid for their entire crop, instead of giving half of it in interest to drug lords. This program would firmly establish President Hamid Karzai as the true authority figure, protector, and benefactor of the Afghan people, while relegating drug traffickers and the Taliban to the status they deserve, criminals, predators, and spoilers.

For opium bans to work at all, they must be backed up with fully developed sustainable alternative crop programs, resources, and markets. The poor are easy prey, and eradication comes down the hardest on those least capable of surviving the blow – poverty ridden farmers, sharecroppers, and field laborers.

Sources of income at a similar level of earnings to opium must be readily available, along with the infrastructure to support them prior to eradication. Hundreds of Afghan farmers have suffered the consequences from voluntarily switching from opium to alternative crops, only to find that the development assistance and support programs they were promised never materialized or were insufficient to sustain them.

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Professor James Emery is an anthropologist and journalist who has reported on regional conflicts and the drug trade for over 20 years, including five years overseas. He's made several trips into Afghanistan, Myanmar, and other drug-producing and transit countries.

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This is the third of eight articles in a series.

See part one at Afghanistan's opium dilemma

See part two at The Taliban opium connection

See part four at Afghan drugs and regional addiction rates

See part five at Afghanistan's myriad drug smuggling routes

See part six at Converting Afghan opium into heroin

See part seven at Winning the Afghan opium war

See part eight at Delivering the fatal blow to Afghan opium