Bangalore, April 24: The flavour has gone out of a dish they have long relished.

For farmers in Karnataka, the sweet taste of payasam, or rice pudding, topped with opium poppy has turned sour after the government banned the crop in the wake of a report from the International Narcotics Control Board.

The authorities destroyed opium poppy worth Rs 675 crore in the international market and took into custody 20 farmers last month after the annual report of the Vienna-based body pointed to an increase in illegal cultivation of opium poppy in Karnataka.

The farmers, who so long have reaped quick returns in the state?s rain-shadow districts because of the crop?s short plant cycle of 120 days and inexpensive inputs, have planned protests later this month.

They also knew nothing about the ban, a fact that dawned much later on the government, which has ordered a probe into whether the arrested cultivators were egged on by sympathisers of the Tamil Tigers as part of an international cartel.

?The farmers will be set free if they prove they are innocent. I admit they were not aware of the ban. Now, we have distributed literature on the crime of cultivation of opium poppy,? said agriculture minister K. Srinivasa Gowda.

Gowda said the drive would continue till the Union government responds to his request to license the cultivation of opium poppy. ?In states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, the government has issued licences for poppy only for medicinal applications. I have requested Mr Sharad Pawar (the agriculture minister) to use his good offices to get similar licences to our farmers,? Gowda added.

While the government is bent on rooting out the opium menace, the farmers want their arrested brethren to be freed first. ?We want the government to withdraw cases against farmers and set them free,? said K. Puttanaiah, president of the Karnataka State Farmers Association, which has decided to lead the protest rally.

The association had earlier waged violent protests against multinational companies like Cargill Seeds and Kentuky Fried Chicken.

Puttanaiah said the farmers were growing poppy but not in any clandestine manner. ?Will the government imprison farmers who grow sugarcane or tobacco because one can make rectified spirit and cigarettes? This coalition government has no inkling of agricultural practices or problems of farmers,? he added.

For the farmers, life has not been easy ever since police began raiding their farms. ?My husband did not know this crop is illegal. The person who gave us the seeds said it was for medicinal plants. I have not slept after the police raided our farm (in March),? said 46-year-old Savithramma, whose husband A. Krishnappa left his village as soon as he got to know about the raid.

Krishnappa, who owns two acres in Algudu, a village in Mandya district close to the Bangalore-Mysore highway, has been charged under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, which means he could be sent to prison for 10 years and slapped a fine of Rs 1 lakh.

R. Hitendra, superintendent of police, Mandya, said there is no ?ambiguity? about the law. ?Opium cultivation is illegal. We are investigating who the end-user is. The involvement of drug traffickers in the racket is also being looked into.?

However, experts on narcotics at the Forensic Science Laboratory, Bangalore, differ. ?If an incision is made on the seeds, it is a serious matter. It points at an effort to drain the latex (later processed into opium). The dry seeds that make it to the market have no narcotic value,? said an expert.

Samples of opium poppy seized by the police have been sent to the laboratory for analysis.