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The effort to eradicate opium production in Afghanistan, strongly backed by the United States and the United Nations, is threatened by its own success, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Tuesday. Addressing an international conference on Afghan opium meeting in Pakistan this week, Annan said that while last year's huge harvest drove prices down and discouraged farmers from planting this year, a tightening of the market because of eradication efforts this year has caused a near doubling of the farm-gate price for opium since October, from $100 a kilo then to $180 a kilo now.

Farmers could return to growing opium "if active intervention on law enforcement, coupled with effective alternative livelihoods assistance is not provided on an urgent basis," Annan warned according to Reuters coverage of the conference.

The opium trade is a mainstay of the Afghan economy, accounting for 60% of the country's gross domestic product. Roughly 10% of all Afghans -- some 350,000 families -- make a living directly from growing poppies, while hundreds of thousands more make a living indirectly from the trade, which, according to the UN, accounted for 87% of illicit opium grown worldwide last year.

Rapid eradication of the opium crop, said Annan, could have "dire consequences," given the extent of opium cultivation, its economic importance to the country, and the fact that many farmers have taken advances on their 2005 crops and would be left with huge debts if their crops were destroyed.

The US government has budgeted more than $700 million to do just that, with Britain kicking in $100 million and seeking another $300 million from other countries.

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