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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 6 March 2006

AFGHANISTAN: Survey predicts rise in opium production in 2006

KABUL, 6 Mar 2006 (IRIN) - A recent survey shows that Afghan farmers are planting more poppy this year than in 2005, in what remains the world’s biggest opium producing country, the United Nations warned on Monday.

A rapid assessment survey of poppy production was carried out jointly by the Ministry of Counter Narcotics (MCN) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) in December 2005 and January 2006. The study was carried out by 70 local field surveyors in 469 villages in 266 districts across the country.

The survey is conducted annually in advance of the full opium survey, which is published in autumn each year. In last year’s survey, published in November 2005, UNODC reported that the amount of land under cultivation with opium had decreased by 21 percent compared to 2004.

“This year, an increase [in poppy cultivation] is expected,” Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told a press briefing in the capital Kabul.

“The survey shows an increasing trend in poppy cultivation in 13 provinces, a stable trend in 16 provinces and a decrease in three provinces,” Edwards explained.

“Among the 13 provinces which show an increasing trend, seven reflect a strong increase, namely Helmand, Ghor, Uruzgan, Zabul, Nangrahar, Laghman and Badakhshan,” Edwards noted.

“We are concerned about these trends [in opium production],” Doris Buddenberg, UNODC Representative in Afghanistan said.

“But they do not come as a complete surprise. It cannot be emphasised enough that counter narcotics is a long-term process, which must be based first of all on an overall development approach, and this takes a long time,” Buddenberg added.

The government said strategies to tackle the opium menace were having an impact. “While the survey predicts an increase [in opium production] in a number of provinces, it is important to note that effective governance and alternative livelihoods is having an impact on stabilising and reducing cultivation,” Habibullah Qaderi, Minister of Counter Narcotics, said on Monday.

Afghanistan still supplies almost 90 percent of the world's opium. The international community set up drug-eradication programmes in Afghanistan after US-led coalition forces toppled the hard line Taliban regime in 2001, but they have had limited impact on poppy production.

[ENDS]

This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but May not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2006