BUMPER CROP OF CORRUPTION

The pink and white poppies for which Helmand province is famous wave gently
in the wind. This year's opium crop is almost ready for harvesting, and
fields of the narcotic-producing flowers decorate the roadside from Kandahar.

But turn off the highway, drive half an hour through the desert, and
different kinds of poppies appear: dead ones, in field after field. Starved
for water, they died where they stood.

Amid the brittle stalks that represent what's left of his crop, Nadir Khan
picked one of the pods and crumbled it in his hand. Instead of lucrative
opium, the most he can now get out of this pod is a handful of poppy seeds
worth pennies. He wants the government to pay him for the poppies it killed.

"We want to get our money from the government. But all the money has gone
to other people."

The story of Khan's ruined crop starts with money being poured into a poor
place and ends with the corruption that has inevitably resulted.

Funded by the World Bank, the government's $80-million poppy eradication
program pays farmers about $700 an acre to destroy the crop.

The program has resulted in political turmoil, with protests throughout
Helmand province when the eradication teams began their work last month.

Now, farmers have mostly stopped blocking the eradication and started
demanding their share of the money. The government has already paid out an
estimated $17 million in Helmand.

But Khan feels cheated. Instead of eradicating the poppy fields and giving
out the promised money, local leaders ordered the Helmand Valley Authority
to turn off irrigation water three weeks ago. The poppies died, and with
them the farmers' hope for reimbursement. You have no crop left to
eradicate, the farmers were told, so you aren't eligible for the money.

"When the central government issued the order, we radioed Kajaki Dam and
told them to shut off the water," said a local commander, Mehrdel Zaquery.
"They did it right away."

Not everyone has lost out. Those with connections -- including Zaquery --
are getting their part of the poppy money.

Khan and other farmers said the government's failed policy will lead them
back next year to the region's most lucrative enterprise.

"They haven't eradicated our farms because they didn't want to give us
money," Khan said. "Now, most people here say they will cultivate poppies
again next year because the government hasn't fulfilled the promises."