I wish they would just firebomb the poppy fields and get it over with. What would be wrong with that? They've been saying they would for years but always decide to 'wait a little longer' and never do anything.
So 600 million dollars, give or take, to replace the economic incentive.
Oh, and also the drop in opium production will raise opium prices, and so you'll need to keep raising the Afghanistan saffron buying price in order to keep it more attractive than opium farming.
I foresee all sorts of unforeseen consequences, and those are just the foreseen ones!
I'm saying that if they had the capability to grow corn, as fizx suggests, then it would be better to use that corn for food, as opposed to biodiesel.
Growing corn for biodiesel would make very little sense.
Firebombing peasant farmers in another country - and you see nothing wrong with that?
Perhaps we could accept some social and economic responsibility for dealing with the problem. Firebombing the poppy fields would be like removing all web developers hands because a website was compromised and credit card numbers stolen.