Opium cultivation in Afghanistan has increased by an estimated 19 per cent this year, according to the latest survey by UNODC.
Cultivation now stands at 12,800 hectares, says the report, after a 95 per cent decrease in last year’s crop season following the Taliban’s April 2022 ban on poppy cultivation. However, cultivation levels remain ‘far below’ 2022 levels, when more than 230,000 hectares were cultivated.
Dry opium prices have now stabilised to around US $730 per kg, compared to a pre-ban average of just US $100 per kg. ‘The high prices and dwindling opium stocks may encourage farmers to flout the ban, particularly in areas outside of traditional cultivation centres, including neighbouring countries,’ UNODC points out.
The geographic centre of cultivation has now shifted from the country’s south west provinces – ‘long the heart of Afghanistan’s opium cultivation’ – to the north eastern provinces, which have seen an increase of almost 400 per cent. Late last year Myanmar overtook Afghanistan as the world’s largest source of opium, following a 20 per cent increase in cultivation.
Although traffickers are thought to have stockpiled opium before and since the 2022 cultivation ban, drugs agencies around the world have long expressed fears that a ‘heroin drought’ as a result of the ban would lead to markets seeing ever-larger supplies of powerful synthetic opioids to fill the gap – dramatically increasing overdose risks. ‘Now entering its second year of enforcement, the ban continues to hold,’ the UNODC report states. ‘The rapid and currently sustained decline in poppy cultivation and opium production has important and wide-ranging implications for the country and opiate markets long supplied by product from Afghanistan.’
‘With opium cultivation remaining at a low level in Afghanistan, we have the opportunity and responsibility to support Afghan farmers to develop sustainable sources of income free from illicit markets,’ said UNODC executive director of Ghada Waly. ‘The women and men of Afghanistan continue to face dire financial and humanitarian challenges, and alternative livelihoods are urgently needed.’
Opium poppy cultivation 2024 available here