Food prices alone won't stop Afghan opium growers: experts

Global food price rises may push some Afghan farmers to plant wheat instead of opium but officials say any real switch will only come from government pressure as poppies are still more profitable.

This year's worldwide jump in prices has hit impoverished Afghanistan hard, with wheat -- the country's dietary staple food -- doubling in some areas and reports of people eating grass to survive.

Opium, of which Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of world supply, is planted at roughly the same time as wheat, at the end of the year.

The recent hikes were too late to influence the last sowing season, and agencies working to slash opium production are looking to the next planting period, around October-November, to see if farmers will make the switch.

Loren Stoddard from the US government's aid agency USAID is hopeful.

"The food security crisis, while it is going to hurt people, is going to make the point to everyone in Afghanistan that poppy is not such a great business," he said in an interview.

"You can't eat it... it's a hard lesson this year," said Stoddard, the group's director of alternative development and agriculture in Afghanistan.

The rising prices mean farmers could earn more with wheat than before, especially if yields are improved via better irrigation, seeds and fertilizer, said UN Food and Agriculture Organisation representative Tekeste Tekie.

"I don't know to what degree but the price itself is a good incentive to encourage them to switch," he said.

Soaring food prices have sparked hunger, poverty and violence around the world, prompting a UN summit this week on how to tackle the crisis.

Still, the gap in profits from essential wheat and illegal opium remains huge.

A hectare (2.47 acres) of wheat under irrigation can earn a farmer 1,500 dollars, said the FAO. The same area of opium can bring in about 5,000 dollars, said the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said in a report in February.