Let's talk agriculture - something Obama touched on very briefly.

[Thickasabrick]

I'm assuming he wants to vamp up agriculture and switch corn or whatever with opium. How could that ever possibly work? Is he thinking ethanol or something? Are we already replacing crops now when we burn the opium fields?

[NYC_SKP]

1. On the matter of agriculture.

grantcart had this to say:

d) Don't let the DEA mindset dictate Opium interdiction. It is preferable to let the farmers grow the opium and buy it back from them, putting them back to work at something they know, and then buying the product legally than going in and destroying their crops. In Thailand the Thai government followed the DEA's instructions for years with limited results until if started a program to let the farmers grow opium and then weaned them off of it by buying their crops but insisting that each year a slightly higher percentage of other crops were planted. Price subsidies helped farmers make a decent living off of other crops and they voluntarily stopped opium production.

Forcible opium eradication doesn't eradicate opium but it does create permanent enemies as hardworking farmers see their years income go up in smoke.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=388x6041

[Thickasabrick]

2. Thank you - that seems like a better way to go. nt

[Hekate]

4. While I was writing, you were already posting! I quoted the same article. nt

[NYC_SKP]

5. Great minds think alike, Hekate.

:toast:

[Hekate]

3. I read recently that Thailand brought its opium farmers under control by ignoring the US-DEA ...

... and subsidizing the farmers.

Grantcart explained it thusly:

>snip<
d) Don't let the DEA mindset dictate Opium interdiction. It is preferable to let the farmers grow the opium and buy it back from them, putting them back to work at something they know, and then buying the product legally than going in and destroying their crops. In Thailand the Thai government followed the DEA's instructions for years with limited results until if started a program to let the farmers grow opium and then weaned them off of it by buying their crops but insisting that each year a slightly higher percentage of other crops were planted. Price subsidies helped farmers make a decent living off of other crops and they voluntarily stopped opium production.

Forcible opium eradication doesn't eradicate opium but it does create permanent enemies as hardworking farmers see their years income go up in smoke. >snip<
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7113264

Afghan opium production was suppressed by the Taliban when they ran the country, but the farmers, who are dirt poor, hid bags of seed. When the US armed forces overran the country, this information was in at least one article I read at the time, plus the farmers' average annual income was something like $3,000/year, and opium is a guaranteed cash crop.

I thought at the time that it would make perfect sense (and be cheap, too) for the US to subsidize these guys for as long as it took them to succeed with other crops, help with irrigation projects, you know the drill. But no, never a whiff of anything like that. The Taliban were (allegedly) chased off, Bush declared Mission Accomplished, a couple of girls' schools were built and ... Bush's attention went elsewhere. The Mission was not even close to accomplished, the girls' schools were closed again by Taliban men, and the farmers reaped a bumper crop of opium.

I honestly don't know if President Obama's military plan will work, but I do hope he has a good plan for the farmers. They need help, and if they can succeed in the tribal back country, that will be a stabilizing force all on its own.

Hekate

[Thickasabrick]

6. I think that is probably the most important part of all this - if we do not

provide either subsidies or another way to earn at least as much money as the Taliban gives them for their opium crops - it will never change.

I read they finally increased the salaries of the security forces so that it was "par" with what the Taliban would give them to not be with the security force - which may be a start in the right direction.