Momin Raheem has been working overtime to complete the opium harvest this year. Early in the morning and late in the afternoon he has been outdoors with one or more labourers, lancing poppy pods and collecting the gummy sap which they produce.
"I know the Taliban have been destroying poppy fields around here", says Mr Raheem, who tends a plot of poppies near the southern Afghan city of Jelalabad. "I expect they'll destroy this one too before long".
Men such as Mr Raheem, who works as a labourer, and the field's owner, who like many exiled Afghans lives in Pakistan, will now have to consider new forms of livelihood for next year.
All along the road leading into Jelalabad is evidence of the Taliban authorities' resolve to reduce opium cultivation: fields of poppies flattened by bulldozers.
For the first time since the Taliban consolidated its hold on Afghanistan in 1996, there are signs that the Islamic fundamentalist regime is paying more than lip service to the notion of drug control.
This development is being greeted with cautious enthusiasm by international anti-drugs agencies.
Concern has been widespread following the announcement that Afghanistan produced 4,600 tonnes of opium in 1999 - more than twice as much as the previous year and three times more than the rest of the world put together.
Some analysts feared that output would continue to spiral and that little could be done to bring the Taliban to book.
The move against opium derives from a decree issued by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar last September ordering a one-third reduction in cultivation of the crop this year. Such edicts have been issued in the past, but now the order is being acted upon.
Why the authorities should be destroying some fields and not others is unclear. And, around Jelalabad, only those plots beside the road are being cleared. But, however limited it may be, an opium eradication campaign is in progress.
In some areas, farmers have been ordered to reduce their opium crop to a maximum of one field.
Near the Taliban's headquarters in Kandahar recently, a huge stash of heroin and hashish was set alight as an Islamic cleric chanted verses from the Koran.
"Some elements in the Taliban are making an effort to reduce opium cultivation, that is clear, and we are getting their co-operation", said Mr Claude Drouot of the UN Drugs Control Programme (UNDCP) in Jelalabad. "But there are different groups within the Taliban so you cannot say they all have the same view".
Many have wondered why the hardline Taliban, which advocates a particularly strict interpretation of the Koran, should demonstrate an ambiguous attitude to opium. Intoxicants, whether they be alcohol, hashish or heroin, are forbidden by Islam.
It is significant that Afghanistan's opium is consumed not within its borders but in distant lands, more often than not by "infidel" Westerners.
There have even been suggestions that the fiercely anti-Western Taliban is ready to use opium as another weapon in its crusade to undermine countries such as the US and Britain, which it views as decadent and "imperialist".
While there is no evidence to prove the Taliban is directly involved in the drugs trade, neither is it a totally disinterested party.
The Taliban stands to gain from opium production by way of a 10 per cent tax, or "ushr". According to some assessments, production and transportation taxes on this cash-rich crop yield between $10 million and $20 million per annum.
Another crucial factor in determining the Taliban's stand on opium is its fear of alienating their support base in rural areas.
While it can rely on the goodwill of the southern, Pashto-speaking population from which it sprang in 1994, it can be less certain of the backing of the multitude of ethnic groups which dominate the north.
A total clampdown on opium production would almost certainly provoke widespread rebellion against a regime which is already overstretched in its war against opposition forces in the north-east.
Many farmers say they do not like growing poppy but have little option in an economy which has been shattered by decades of war.
Poppy grows faster, produces more profit and is easier to sell than most other crops. It is also a source of credit, enabling poor peasants to get cash in advance for their product. With this they can buy not just food but also medicines and other essentials.
The Taliban's move against opium is increasingly being seen as an indication of their readiness to court the international community.
Recognised by only three countries (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) and subject to economic sanctions for its refusal to surrender alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, the Taliban has few other bargaining tools at its disposal.
"Some people are asking if their anti-drugs rhetoric is just for show", says Mr Drouot. "But I'm inclined to take the optimistic view. Otherwise, what is the point of our work?"
Only the results of the UN's annual opium survey, due out in September, will tell how rigorously Mullah Omar's decree is being enforced and whether the Taliban is serious about eradicating the world's largest single source of opium.