Afghanistan government as part of its effort to eradicate poppy has allocated 30 million U.S. dollars to provide alternative livelihood to farmers, spokesman of Counter Narcotics Ministry said Saturday.

"Some 30 million U.S. dollars have been earmarked to provide alternative livelihood to farmers and encourage them stop poppy cultivation," Zalmai Afzali told journalists.

He made this comment while poppy plantation is in rampant and the farmers are going to harvest their illegal crops within month.

However, the spokesman was of the view that the above sum was not enough and Afghanistan needs more international support to tackle the problem effectively.

"We want international community to extend more support and enable the ministry to seek permanent solution of our farmers and narcotics issue in coordination with other ministries," Afzali noted.

He also said that the government was firm to eradicate poppy and that was why the destruction of poppy fields is continuing.

"We have destroyed 8,450 hectares of poppy cultivated lands so far this year. The process of poppy destruction is going on and we hope to drastically reduce poppy cultivation," he pointed out.

However, he failed to predict the percent of shortfall in poppy production in 2006. The drop in poppy production in 2005 registered 21 percent in compression with 2004.

Afghanistan with an output of 4,100 tones of opium poppy in 2005 became the single largest supplier of raw material used in manufacturing heroin in the world and the menace is expected to increase further this year as more farmers devoted swathe of land.

Under a counter narcotics strategy launched in May 2003, the Afghan government is hopeful to reduce poppy cultivation by 75 percent by 2008.

Source: Xinhua