PESHAWAR, Dec 12: Islamabad’s foreign-funded initiative to eliminate poppy cultivation in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) has suffered a major setback after the Khyber Agency’s political administration failed to distribute free fertilizer and wheat seeds to encourage alternative crops in the poppy growing areas, according to official sources.
When contacted, agency’s political agent Arbab Mohammed Arif Khan evaded comment, but he did not reject the information about non-distribution of the seeds and fertilizer among farmers in his area of jurisdiction.
“This is in our national interest not to highlight the matter in media. It will negatively impact the country,” agency administrator Arbab Mohammad Arif Khan told Dawn on Friday.
Asked about the reasons for withholding the distribution of seeds and fertilizer among the farmers of tehsil Bara, the official repeatedly insisted to hush up the matter and asserted: “I have some valid points to defend the administration’s point of view at any other forum, if it appears in the newspapers.”
He maintained that the growers might not give up poppy cultivation for the sake of a few kilograms of seeds and fertilizer. Free distribution of seeds would encourage them, he said.
The Khyber Agency political authorities have received some 60,000kg of wheat seed and some 1,200 bags of fertilizer for free distribution among the local farmers under the Khyber Area Development project.
The project, simultaneously launched in two other agencies, Mohmand and Bajaur, is aimed at discouraging poppy cultivation in remote areas and encouraging farmers to cultivate alternative crops.
During a visit to the office of agriculture officer Alam Goder in Khyber Agency, this correspondent found a big consignment of seeds and fertilizer stored in the office’s verandah.
Officials said seeds and fertilizer were to distribute among the farmers of poppy growing areas before the commencement of poppy sowing season.
An official said they had repeatedly requested the assistant political agent Bara tehsil to either distribute seeds and fertilizer among the farmers or shift the consignment to any other place to protect it from weather effects. “But we are told to wait,” he said.
A farmer in Bara told that they were not aware of the free distribution of seeds.
Officials of the agricultural office, Bara, said the sowing season of poppy and wheat had passed in the target areas of the agency and the growers had cultivated poppy in the upper parts of Bara tehsil.
Officials of the Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS), Peshawar office, when approached, did not offer comments about the non-distribution of seeds and fertilizer by the agency’s political administration in the target areas, but claimed that they were monitoring different crops cultivation and other activities kicked off under the project in the tribal areas.
The NAS, a US government body, is closely working with different government agencies to eradicate poppy cultivation from the region and combat drug trafficking. The organization is providing financial and technical assistance to the tribal administration to encourage the poppy growers to stop cultivating the prohibited plant and grow alternate crops.
“The NAS just provides funds for purchasing top variety of seeds and fertilizers. It’s government responsibility to distribute them among the farmers,” an official said.
The NAS officials are confident about the free distribution of seeds and fertilizer among the poppy growers in two other tribal agencies, Mohmand and Bajuar, to help cultivate alternate crops.
“But we cannot say any thing about Khyber Agency,” an official of the NAS told Dawn here on Friday. The agency administration was in better position to explain the reasons for dumping the consignment, he added.