The US has announced a new drug policy for opium-rich Afghanistan, saying it was phasing out funding for eradication efforts while significantly increasing its funding for alternate crop and drug interdiction efforts.

US envoy for Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke said on Saturday that eradication programmes weren’t working and were only driving farmers into the hands of Taliban. “Eradication is a waste of money,” Holbrooke said on the sidelines of a G-8 foreign ministers’ meeting on Afghanistan, during which he briefed regional representatives on the new policy.

The G-8 ministers “strongly appreciated” the shift, which also includes an increase in annual US funding for agricultural development from a few million dollars to a few hundred million dollars, said Foreign Minister Franco Frattini of Italy, the current G-8 President.

Head of UN drug office Antonio Maria Costa said that the dip in cultivation was welcome “'though vulnerable to relapse” without concerted international efforts to assist farmers abandon poppy cultivation to harvest other crops. In addition, law enforcement operations must be increased to disrupt drug markets, production labs and convoys, he said. Holbrooke said the US planned to do just that with its new policy shift.

Holbrooke said the previous US policy to combat Afghan poppy, which focused on eradication programs, hadn’t reduced “by one dollar” the amount of money the Taliban earned off cultivation and production.