To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what steps his Department has taken to persuade farmers in Afghanistan to diversify crop production away from poppy production; what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of such initiatives; what estimate he has made of the costs incurred to date; and if he will make a statement. (269811)

Progress is being made on promoting legal crop growing and on reducing poppy production in Afghanistan. The number of poppy free provinces has increased from three in 2006 to 13 in 2007 and 18 in 2008. Poppy cultivation fell in 2008 by 19 per cent. across Afghanistan, and the percentage of agricultural land devoted to poppy growing has fallen to just 2 per cent.

The UK Government support the Government of Afghanistan's National Drug Control Strategy (NDCS) by creating immediate and long-term opportunities for legal livelihoods.

The Department for International Development (DFID) and the World Bank jointly funded an assessment of the economic incentives of development initiatives designed to reduce opium production. This is available at:

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/0„contentMDK: 21636749~paqePK:146736~piPK:146830~ theSitePK:223547.00.html

Our support to licit livelihoods takes account of the key findings of this study.

Between 2006-09 DFID spent over £62 million promoting legal livelihoods and has pledged £60 million in support of national agricultural and rural development programmes and £68 million for relevant work in Helmand province between 2009-10 and 2012-13. This support will be aligned with the NDCS, Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) and the key findings of the 'Economic Incentives' report.