Opium poppy harvest declines 6% in Afghanistan
Eradication effort, along with drought and a global food shortage that boosted the price of wheat, cut production of the crop, which is used to make heroin.
Reporting from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, and The United Nations -- After seven years of extraordinary expansion, Afghanistan's harvest of poppies used to produce opium has declined by 6% from a record high in 2007, according to the annual opium survey by the United Nations released Thursday.
The amount of land used to cultivate opium declined by 19%, to about 388,000 acres.
"We are finally seeing the results of years of effort of making some areas completely free of opium harvesting," said Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Opium production is now concentrated in seven provinces in the southwestern part of the country.
Afghanistan is responsible for providing 95% of the world's opium-based drugs like heroin. The 6% decline is especially significant because the harvest previously was growing by as much as 20% a year.
While the trend is raising hopes that the anti-drug efforts of the Afghan government and its Western allies are succeeding, there is evidence that powerful factions in the country like the Taliban are also trying to squelch production. The insurgents are involved in poppy production and want to drive up prices to raise cash for their guerrilla warfare.
Costa's U.N. agency issues its annual report after gathering information throughout the year via satellite photographs followed up by surveillance on the ground.
This year's turnaround was also attributed to events unrelated to the eradication effort, including a drought and global food shortage that drove up the price of wheat, making it almost as profitable to farm as opium.
"You produce wheat and that gets you a better income and you're not afraid to be thrown in jail," said Costa, noting that the drought this year also hurt both the wheat and poppy harvests.
Nowhere can this year's decrease be seen as dramatically as in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, which was ranked the No. 2 opium-cultivating province in last year's U.N. survey. This time, it was certified opium-free.
Nangarhar, a fertile eastern province that borders Pakistan, was once a patchwork of poppy fields, a quilt-like pattern of them easily visible from the air.
Considered Afghanistan's breadbasket, it is bisected by the Kabul River and by a large man-made irrigation canal with many tributaries.
- Drug Crackdown Tied to U.N. Seat Oct 07, 1998
- Government Destroys Opium Poppy Crops Mar 09, 2006
- Taliban Imposes Ban on Poppy Growing Jul 29, 2000
