By Jon Hemming LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Afghan tribal elders and farmers in the world's biggest opium-producing region have promised not to plant poppies this year, the provincial governor said on Monday, only weeks before the time for sowing. Afghanistan produced 93 percent of the world's opium this year and more than half of that was grown along a narrow band of fertile land on the banks of the Helmand River that threads its way through the desert. Profits from opium, worth more than $3 billion a year to the Afghan economy, also fund the insurgency which is at its most virulent in Helmand where Taliban rebels hold a key town and a number of villages. The militants engage mostly British and U.S. troops in almost daily gunbattles. Asadullah Wafa, appointed governor of Helmand last December after this year's crop was planted, said promises by elders and farmers not to sow poppies in the coming weeks will help Helmand turn the corner and at least reduce its record-breaking opium crop. "When I came here poppy had already been planted but now the people have given letters of guarantee that they will not grow poppy next year," he told Reuters at his heavily guarded compound in the Helmand provincial capital Lashkar Gah. "I discussed the bad effects of poppy and that it was illegal according to Islam." Next year, he said the poppy crop "will decrease a lot", but he declined to make any prediction on the size of the reduction. Pledges by farmers to stop growing opium in return for promises of increased aid have had some success in the more peaceful north of Afghanistan and can work as part of an 'Afghan solution' to the drug problem, Western officials say. But many farmers are trapped in a cycle of debt to traffickers who lend them money to buy poppy seeds. "In general it's a good idea, but in order to be realistic there needs to be something in return," said Christina Oguz, the head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan. "It can have an impact if the decision (to plant poppy) is with the farmers and they must get something in return," she said. LIMITED PROGRESS Afghan and Western officials say only limited progress can be achieved in the fight against opium, which is processed into heroin and smuggled abroad, while security remains fragile at best in Helmand and other parts of the restive south. Security had improved in Helmand, Wafa insisted, but the danger of suicide bombers is ever present and foreign forces only travel, even around the provincial capital, at break-neck speed in heavily armed convoys. The governor said suicide attacks could only be stopped at source. "The world should pay attention to the source of suicide bombers -- where they come from, who is funding them, who is training them and the resources of the suicide bomber should be destroyed," he said. "They do not get training in Afghanistan, they get training in foreign countries. They get training in neighbouring countries." Afghan officials say Taliban leaders and fighters enjoy a safe-haven in the Pashtun tribal areas along the porous border with Pakistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has offered face-to-face talks with Taliban leaders to try to bring a negotiated end to the insurgency, but a rebel spokesman demanded the withdrawal of the nearly 50,000 foreign troops first. But some Taliban commanders, mindful of Western military successes in targeting mid-level rebel leaders, are showing increasing signs they might be willing to engage the government in talks, Western security officials say. Wafa, a wizened, grey-bearded man previously involved in talks with rebel fighters, said he would soon be travelling to neighbouring Pakistan for talks. "We will talk to those people who it is necessary for us to talk with," he said, declining to give details. "This is secret. We cannot declare it to the media. When we return you will see."
