Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is down by 20 per cent compared to last year, according to the latest survey by UNODC. The total area under cultivation in the country is now estimated at 10,200 hectares – compared to 12,800 hectares last year and a fraction of the 232,000 hectares recorded just before the Taliban’s 2022 ban on cultivation.
Opium production has declined at an even faster rate than cultivation, falling by more than 30 per cent to an estimated 296 tons. These latest sharp contractions alongside other market indicators suggest that opium production and trafficking are ‘undergoing major shifts in the region’, says UNODC. While Afghanistan previously supplied 95 per cent of Europe’s heroin, poppy cultivation in the country had already fallen by 95 per cent within a year of the ban, with Myanmar subsequently overtaking Afghanistan as the world’s largest opium source.
Income from opium sales is also down by almost 50 per cent compared to last year, to US $134m from US $260m, with many farmers shifting to growing cereals and other crops. However, drought and low rainfall has led to more than 40 per cent of Afghanistan’s farmland laying barren, says UNODC.
As ‘agricultural-based’ opiate production continues to decline, synthetic drugs appear to have become ‘the new business model’ for organised crime groups, the agency states. Often extremely potent – and with far higher risk of overdose – these substances are not only much easier to produce, they are more resistant to climate changes and harder to detect by law enforcement.
‘Counter-narcotics strategies must therefore broaden beyond opium to integrate synthetic drugs in monitoring, interdiction and analysis, as well as demand-reduction responses,’ says UNODC. Almost 90 new synthetic opioids have appeared on the European drugs market since 2009, while deaths involving nitazenes in England and Wales almost quadrupled between 2023 and 2024 according to the latest drug death statistics from ONS.
‘Afghanistan’s path to overcoming illicit crop cultivation requires coordinated, long-term investments, including through international partnerships,’ said the agency’s regional representative for Afghanistan, Central Asia, Iran, and Pakistan, Oliver Stolpe.
Afghanistan opium survey 2025 available here