AFGHANISTAN: More provinces poppy-free, but opium production still high
KABUL, 12 May 2008 (IRIN) - The government’s ongoing battle to eliminate opium production has had partial success in 2008 in that there are now about 20 provinces in the north, east and northeast of the country which are poppy-free, up from 16 in 2007, according to the Afghan Ministry of Counter-Narcotics (MCN).
“Poppy cultivation has reached nearly zero percent in more than 20 provinces,” General Khodaidad, the minister of counter-narcotics, told reporters in Kabul on 11 May. He added that many farmers in those areas had switched to growing legal crops, mostly wheat.
However, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) warned in a February report that Afghanistan’s opium production levels in 2008 could remain similar to last year’s record harvest of 8,200 metric tones because of increased output in the main opium producing provinces in the south and southwest of the country.
These provinces accounted for 78 percent of total opium cultivation in Afghanistan last year and have continued to grow opium at an alarming rate, UNODC said in its report.
“This is because in those areas there is the problem of insecurity, lack of coordination among government bodies and presence of terrorists and anti-government elements who profit from narcotics,” Khodaidad said. “Anti-government elements exchange heroin and opium with arms,” he added.
Armed farmers or gunmen have killed at least 60 counter-narcotics officers – mostly involved in the eradication of poppy fields – in the past two months alone, the counter-narcotics ministry said.
The wheat price factor
The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, backed by donors, is trying to eliminate opium production in Afghanistan through forced eradication, interdiction and an under-resourced alternative livelihood policy.
Paradoxically, one encouraging sign in the war against opium has been country-wide increased food prices. The price of bread, a staple of the Afghan diet, has doubled in some regions, reportedly leading some farmers in Baghlan, Badakhshan, Balkh and several other northern provinces to turn from growing poppies to wheat.
But government officials said it was too early to say whether or not there were “direct links” between high wheat prices and reduced poppy cultivation in some areas.
In May, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock told IRIN that if farmers in Helmand, Kandahar and other major opium-producing provinces grew wheat instead of poppies, the currently food-insecure nation would become self-sufficient in terms of domestic cereal production.
Afghan farmers cultivated poppies on 193,000 hectares of land in 2007, which produced about 93 percent of the world’s heroin last year, according to UNODC.
The illicit drug money earned through poppy cultivation, opium production and the smuggling of narcotics – estimated to total up to US$4 billion – is equal to almost half of the poor nation’s overall gross domestic production and employs millions of Afghans, experts say.
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Theme(s): (IRIN) Economy, (IRIN) Governance
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Copyright © IRIN 2008
This material comes to you via IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations or its Member States.
IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
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