For three years Gulam Gul has been growing wheat, rice, radishes and cauliflower - anything but the opium that his family once depended on. The work is hard and his income too low to support his 13 dependents, and he is planning a career change - to merchant in a bazaar.
"When I was growing opium, for one season I was earning 200,000 rupees (3,345 dollars). Now I get 60,000 rupees for one season," Gul says in his field on the outskirts of Jalalabad, where the Pakistani rupee is commonly used.
He and other farmers ripped up their opium poppies because the government ordered a halt to Afghanistan's huge production of illicit opium, which makes up more than 85 percent of the world's total and is used to make heroin.
In eastern Nangahar, of which Jalalabad is the capital, the order was particularly successful with a more than 95 percent reduction in the poppy cultivation this year. The province was the second largest producer in 2004.
But many Nangahar farmers, especially those in remote, mountainous areas, have turned back to the lucrative crop this planting season which began a few weeks ago, says former agriculture minister Sayed Aziz Zaheer, who oversaw the drop in output.
"I know people have already planted in the far districts. Between 40 to 50 percent of them are in mountainous areas - it's far away where people cannot see it," he says.
One reason is that farmers have not been successful in switching to other crops, in part because the government has failed to distribute promised fertiliser and seeds, Zaheer says.
"I say for the next year poppy cultivation will increase because the government hasn't fulfilled their promise," he says.
Another reason is that opium is so much more lucrative than other produce: income from opium poppies was around 5,400 dollars per hectare (2.47 acres) this year compared with about 550 dollars for wheat, according to UN figures.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime also expects opium production to creep up in several provinces, including Nangahar, after slipping in 2005.
In August the office announced there had been a 21 percent drop in land area planted with poppies, although this only translated into a 2.4 percent drop in output to 4,100 tonnes because of favourable weather conditions for the crop.
The decline was nonetheless the first since the 2001 toppling of the Taleban government, under which Afghanistan's opium production was largely unchecked until the hard-liners ordered a ban in 2000 in a bid to avoid international sanctions.
But the ouster of the Taleban also meant the collapse of law and order which saw a resurgence in the crop first grown on a large scale in Afghanistan in the early 1980s.
The new US-backed government now has support in its fight against the drugs trade - which is equivalent to 52 percent of the official gross domestic product - from its international partners, notably Britain and the United States who stress the link between drugs and terrorism.
To curb production, eradication programmes must be stepped up, says an American official involved in the counter-narcotics efforts, adding though it is likely to take at least 20 years for "overall elimination" of the crop.
There should be more "prosecution of traffickers, more law enforcement, and removals of some corrupted local officials involved in the trafficking," he says, under condition of anonymity.
The government is defensive of its efforts in its "war on drugs", regularly releasing details of the smashing of makeshift heroin labs and confiscation of batches of opium.
It has also enlisted mullahs in this devout country to preach against the scourge, but resisted suggestions that it legalise its opium and turn it towards the production of legal painkillers.
Authorities are reluctant to resort to chemical spraying, such as used in Colombia - which is the world's leading producer of cocaine with 480 tonnes annually despite the huge US-sponsored spraying, but some of Afghanistan's partners say this is the answer.
"If the government doesn't take action and reduction cannot be sustained, the idea of aerial spray will certainly be revisited. Not in one or two years, but it's a cloud in the horizon," says a Western official.
For Gulam Gul, in his field outside the city of Jalalabad, the risk of jail or having his crop destroyed is not worth the money to be made from opium, which he grew for years under the Taleban.
"If the government destroys my crop, I am a poor person. What would I do?" he asks, taking a break from meticulously sweeping grains of rice into a pile.
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