DFID - UK Department for International Development
Farmer and teacher, Muhammed Nur
Muhammed Nur, a farmer and teacher at the Helmand Agriculture High School, has hope for the future: “We can rebuild this country. We want the students to learn how to grow legal crops here, not illegal ones”, he says. “Inshallah, God-willing, we can rebuild this country. May Allah guide our elders and show our children the right path”.
Afghanistan currently produces 90% of the world’s opium, the key ingredient in heroin. The UK-led Provincial Reconstruction Team in Helmand Province is helping Afghanistan to tackle the country’s illegal drugs trade which destroys lives around the world.
At this new training college in Lashkar Gah, young Afghan farmers are learning to grow legal crops that can give them an alternative income to opium. Established farmers are destroying poppy fields so they can use the land to grow wheat and other crops from subsidised seeds.
This work is seeing results - poppy cultivation in Helmand is falling as farmers start to grow new crops. To curtail the traffickers, Afghanistan’s counter narcotics police play a crucial role finding and destroying smuggled drugs before they leave the country.
To find out more about how UK aid is working in Afghanistan, please visit: www.dfid.gov.uk/afghanistan
Picture: David Gill/Development Pictures
Farmer and teacher, Muhammed Nur
Muhammed Nur, a farmer and teacher at the Helmand Agriculture High School, has hope for the future: “We can rebuild this country. We want the students to learn how to grow legal crops here, not illegal ones”, he says. “Inshallah, God-willing, we can rebuild this country. May Allah guide our elders and show our children the right path”.
Afghanistan currently produces 90% of the world’s opium, the key ingredient in heroin. The UK-led Provincial Reconstruction Team in Helmand Province is helping Afghanistan to tackle the country’s illegal drugs trade which destroys lives around the world.
At this new training college in Lashkar Gah, young Afghan farmers are learning to grow legal crops that can give them an alternative income to opium. Established farmers are destroying poppy fields so they can use the land to grow wheat and other crops from subsidised seeds.
This work is seeing results - poppy cultivation in Helmand is falling as farmers start to grow new crops. To curtail the traffickers, Afghanistan’s counter narcotics police play a crucial role finding and destroying smuggled drugs before they leave the country.
To find out more about how UK aid is working in Afghanistan, please visit: www.dfid.gov.uk/afghanistan
Picture: David Gill/Development Pictures