According to a United Nations assessment report, cultivation of opium poppies in Afghanistan jumped during the current year irrespective of a legal restriction by the administration. The findings of an analysis revealed by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says that agricultural activities grew by roughly 19 percent in the first 10 months of 2024.
Opium poppy cultivation has been on the rise but it is still substantially behind what was the case ahead of to the Taliban takeover two years ago. The unprocessed product utilized for producing most heroin in the globe comes from opium poppy.
The entire land under production in 2024 was only 12,800 hectares. Compared to the 232,000 hectares that were irrigated before the ban, this is a substantial decline.
Based on the UNODC report, opium production declined by 95% last year as an outcome of a ban on opium production months after the Taliban took over power in the country.
Under the UN head’s deputy envoy, the recent figures provide significantly more indication that growing opium was declining across Afghanistan. Roza Otunbayeva continued to assert that the international society, the area, and the country’s neighboring nations must all embrace the move.
The results of the study say production has shifted to the provinces in the northeast from its original base in the southwestern regions. This year, the northeast represented about 60% of farming opium.
In those provinces, in the northeast, farming opium has been rising by 381 percent during last year. Nearly all of the opium produced in the area last year originated in Badakhshan.
The research additionally emphasizes that Taliban restriction has caused opium costs to soar. It suggests poppy growing is still a tempting option for Afghans who are suffering under the burden of severe economic pressure. From norms of roughly one hundred dollars per kilogram before 2022, prices now stand at around $730.
When compared to last August’s $408 per kg, which broke the records for two decades, it is still much greater.
Otunbayeva highlighted the necessity for assistance for those in rural areas who are deprived of their primary means of livelihood. “If we want this transition to be sustainable, they urgently need international support,” she added.
The restriction has had an extreme economic effect on a large group of Afghan producers. Other products have not yielded the same income for the farmers. Afghanistan is among the world’s most impoverished nations, according to government figures.
Researchers claim that even authorized crops constitute only an interim measure. The development of jobs in unrelated businesses must be addressed.
Many individuals died in Badakhshan earlier this year as a consequence of conflicts between landowners and troops ordered to level their poppy crops.
