A mysterious crop disease has torn through the poppy fields of southern Afghanistan, leading Antonia Maria Costa, head of the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime, to decrease the projection for the 2010 opium harvest by an astonishing 2,600 metric tons, or one-third of the national output. Scores of Afghan farmers have supported Costa's claim, indicating that the opium harvest currently taking place in Afghanistan's five main opium producing provinces will result in meager yields. The socioeconomic impact of the failed harvest comes at a precarious time, as thousands of international and Afghan troops are preparing to pacify the restless and unstable southern provinces in a massive military operation this summer.
Taliban insurgents have already issued statements to the local population blaming international forces for spraying unknown chemicals over southern Afghanistan, damaging crops and sickening livestock. Some Afghan farmers are claiming their legal food crops, like apricot trees and wheat, have also suffered. Even livestock such as cows and goats are rumored to be sick. Although the UNODC is currently testing samples from the badly damaged opium crop, anecdotal evidence points to fungi -- possibly macrosporium papaverus, which causes root and capsule rot, resulting in little-to-no extractable opium latex being available to farmers. Aphids, small plant-eating insects, are often infected by bacteria, viruses and fungi, and could also bear responsibility for the wide destruction of poppy crops. But with Taliban propaganda mechanisms working at full capacity, the rumor mill is in full swing. Conspiracy-minded communities of southern Afghanistan are increasingly convinced that international forces are responsible for the "mysterious" destruction of their poppy crops. For their part, NATO and U.S. officials have vehemently denied any participation in a chemical or bio-agent dispersal operation against Afghan poppies. ...