OPIUM POPPY PRODUCTION IN AFGHANISTAN: HIGH BUT STABILIZED, NEW UN SURVEY FINDS
Press Release
SOC/NAR/746
OPIUM POPPY PRODUCTION IN AFGHANISTAN: HIGH BUT STABILIZED, NEW UN SURVEY FINDS
19960926 VIENNA, 25 September (UN Information Service) -- Opium production, which had been skyrocketing in Afghanistan from about 200 metric tonnes per year before war broke out in 1978 to more than 2,200 tonnes in 1995 -- following a brief surge to 3,400 tonnes in 1994 -- has leveled off for the first time in 18 years, according to a new United Nations report.The survey, Afghanistan Opium Poppy Survey 1996, conducted by the Vienna-based United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), focused on the extent of opium poppy cultivation in the country's poppy-growing provinces. Among other findings, it states that opium poppy cultivation and yield during the 1995-1996 growing season in Afghanistan was virtually at the same level as in the 1994-1995 season, with a slight increase in the estimated area under cultivation (5.7 per cent) and in the corresponding estimated yield (8.8 per cent).
One factor that may have contributed to the leveling off is a decline in the farmgate prices of opium due to saturated markets in west Asia, western Europe and North America.
The report sees a sharp increase in opium cultivation in Oruzgan and Qandahar provinces as resulting from a Taliban-imposed ban on the use, cultivation and trafficking of cannabis. The Talibans, who as fundamentalist Muslims oppose all forms of intoxication, oppose opium smoking, but in order to protect their support base have refused to declare a ban on the cultivation of poppy and trafficking in opium. The Talibans currently control nearly 95 per cent of the area under opium poppy cultivation.
The UNDCP points out that Afghanistan's current yield of 2,200 to 2,300 tonnes of dry opium is almost equal to the combined estimated opium production in the "Golden Triangle" (Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Thailand). The continuing sizeable production in both subregions is seen as having a significant impact on the worldwide abuse and trafficking of heroin.
Few countries today are faced with a more daunting array of problems than Afghanistan -- it is poverty-stricken, its infrastructure is in ruins, 2.5 million people were maimed or disabled after 18 years of war, and there is a lack of a single central government due to factional fighting. Add to that the halving of legitimate agricultural production to pre-1960 levels, a per
capita income below $100 per year and additional pressure of 25,000 refugees returning per month.
Against such a backdrop, Afghanistan experienced a relentless and unchecked annual increase in poppy cultivation throughout the years of foreign intervention and domestic conflict -- until the 1994-1995 growing season when lower prices, an official eradication campaign and bad weather caused production to fall from 3,400 tonnes to the present level. The country now competes with Myanmar for notoriety as one of the world's two largest producers of opium and its derivatives, and its opium-processing capacity has been on the rise.
Afghanistan has 55,000 to 58,000 hectares of opium poppy fields, with the provinces of Helmand and Nangarhar accounting for 73 per cent of the production. The current estimated yield varies between 12 kilograms per hectare on rain-fed fields and 68 kilograms per hectare on the best irrigated fields, with a national average of 39.6 kilograms per hectare.
While the overall area under cultivation remained more or less the same as in the previous season, some of the more significant changes at the provincial level include a reduction of 4,844 hectares (16.3 per cent) in the poppy area in Helmand and 133 hectares (87.5 per cent) in Kunar. The survey found an increase of 5,204 hectares (202.3 per cent) in the poppy area in Oruzgan and 699 hectares (28.4 per cent) in Qandahar. Moreover, the Balkh and Zabul provinces, which had not been surveyed previously, had 1,065 hectares and 254 hectares under poppy cultivation, respectively.
In Nangarhar province, the area under poppy cultivation remained practically the same as in the previous season. Although the 3,261 hectares of poppy fields in the five Nangarhar districts -- where a forced poppy eradication campaign was carried out by the provincial authorities in November 1994 -- indicate a 1,300 hectare increase in comparison with the 1995 poppy hectarage, that is still nowhere close to the 10,516 hectares those districts had under poppy cultivation in 1994. The report sees that as an indication that the more than 8,800 farmers whose poppy fields were eradicated in 1994 did not all revert back to poppy planting in 1996. One contributing factor may have been the high-yield wheat seeds which the UNDCP provided to affected farmers in the five districts.
If the present level of opium production in Afghanistan is to be brought down to pre-war levels, major efforts will be required on the part of the Afghan authorities, rural communities, and relevant bilateral and multilateral programmes active in the country, according to the UNDCP. The Programme intends to continue gathering and analysing data on opium production in Afghanistan and, within the resources available to it, to launch initiatives to address production, trafficking and abuse of illicit drugs.
The UNDCP is formulating a four-year drug control programme for Afghanistan, which it hopes to launch by the end of the year, if sufficient funds can be mobilized from the donor community.
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