Drought-breaking rains in Afghanistan’s north and west have resulted in a boom in lucrative opium poppy harvests, according to a United Nations agricultural expert here.
Some 60 000 hectares of opium poppies have been harvested this year, while an extra 23 000 hectares have been planted, Hector Malleta, an agricultural specialist with the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), told a press conference at the weekend.
”A large amount of land has been planted with poppies and there has been a very large increase in poppy production this year,” Malletta said.
With the lucrative crop commanding $350 to $400 per kilogram this year, farmers stood to fetch $14 000 per hectare of poppies, he said.
Farmers in the country’s east have been cultivating the poppies as a substitute for wheat, resulting in low wheat harvests in the country’s eastern districts.
”In eastern provinces, wheat has been substituted by poppy plantations,” Maletta said.
”The price of opium is very high this year. Before 1996, one kilo of opium was $60,” he said. Afghanistan has been one of the world’s biggest producers of opium poppies, used to make heroin, for years.
A ban on poppy production imposed by the now defunct Taliban regime during their five-year reign sent the opium prices skyrocketing to $700 a kilo.
”Now it is about 350 to 400 (dollars per kilo),” Maletta said, adding that each hectare of opium poppies could net 40 kilos.
The government of President Hamid Karzai has vowed to eradicate opium poppy cultivation and stem Afghanistan’s rampant drugs trade.
It has been engaged in a campaign since April to convert farmers to the cultivation of alternative crops, but complained last month that a lack of foreign aid was making it difficult to convert opium poppy farmers to other crops.
A UN Drug Control Program (UNDCP) report in June found that Afghanistan was still producing almost 100% of opiates (opium morphine and heroin) in Iran, Pakistan and central Asia states, and 70 to 90% of heroin on the European market.
According to the UN, Afghanistan’s heroin production is still immense although very few locals take hard drugs. – Sapa-AFP