Pol-Mil:

Thanks for the key points on water---study first, drill well second.

As a September 2, 2009 US News & World Reports article indicates:

"KATMANDU, Nepal—Effects of climate change including the melting of Himalayan glaciers threaten water and food security for more than 1.6 billion people living in South Asia, according to a study released Wednesday.
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India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Nepal will be most vulnerable to falling crop yields caused by glacier retreat, floods, droughts and erratic rainfall, said the study financed by the Asian Development Bank."

http://www.usnews.com/science/articl...t-in-asia.html

The background glacial, climatic, AND Demographic issues all play against the idea that agricultural sustainability, let alone, expansion, is a viable option. It is a Zero Sum Game (if one wins, it is at the expense of another), but with a pervasive background decline rate (30 years of, in general, greatly decreasing rainfall, high rate of population growth, etc...).

Pop growth alone is expected to double in about 20 years. Against that reality, crop and ag failures, and subsequent farm abandonments (rural to urban flight) are givens. Any policy or efforts that don;t recognize that are short-sighted.

From my recent demographic, geographic research, the more I find, the more it points to the fact that the "old" rural afghan way life is, independent of politics and war, under great pressure (an endangered species). Without serious resolution of ag sustainability and water politics, the current conflict between urban/rural has just begun, and I wouldn't be betting on the rurals (history is against them).

Opium, of course, is a crop of last resort for some local farmers, anyway. Too many successive crop failures got them there in the first place.

In the meantime, the sooner we avoid short-term fixes like well-drilling until we understand the bigger system implications, the sooner we do less harm.

Steve