UNITED NATIONS: Opium cultivation in Afghanistan in 2022 soared by almost one-third, with one of the biggest harvests in the last three decades despite a ban on opium poppy imposed by the Taliban in April, according to a new UN report.
The report, “Opium cultivation in Afghanistan,” is the first such analysis by the Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) since the Taliban came to power in August last year.
Opium poppy plantations increased by 32 per cent over the previous year, reaching 233,000 hectares, making the 2022 harvest the third largest in the last three decades, after 2017 and 2018.
This year’s harvest may turn into up to 380 tons of high-purity heroin, the deadliest drug around the globe, of which Afghanistan supplies 80 per cent of the demand.
On their part, the authorities banned all cultivation of opium poppy and all narcotics under strict new laws, in April 2022.
Opium is the essential ingredient for manufacturing the street drug heroin, and the class of medical prescription opioids, which millions rely on for pain medication worldwide, it was pointed out. Opioids have also been increasingly abused, causing widespread addiction issues in countries such as the United States.
This year’s harvest was largely exempted from the decree, said UNODC, and farmers in Afghanistan must now decide on planting opium poppy for next year amid continued uncertainty about how the Taliban will enforce the ban.
Sowing of the main 2023 opium crop must be done by early November this year.
“Afghan farmers are trapped in the illicit opiate economy, while seizure events around Afghanistan suggest that opiate trafficking continues unabated,” said UNODC Executive Director Ghada Waly, launching the new survey.
“The international community must work to address the acute needs of the Afghan people, and to step up responses to stop the criminal groups trafficking heroin and harming people in countries around the world.”
According to UNODC findings, cultivation of opium poppies in Afghanistan increased by 32 per cent over the previous year, to 233,000 hectares, making the 2022 crop the third largest area under cultivation since monitoring began.
Cultivation continued to be concentrated in the southwestern parts of the country, which accounted for 73 per cent of the total area and registered the largest crop increase.
In Helmand province, one-fifth of all arable land was dedicated to opium poppy cultivation.
Opium prices have soared following the announcement of the cultivation ban in April. Income made by Afghan farmers from opium sales more than tripled, from $425 million in 2021 to $1.4 billion in 2022.
The new figure is equivalent to 29 per cent of the entire 2021 value of the agricultural sector. In 2021, the farm-gate value of opiates was only worth some nine per cent of the previous year’s agricultural output.
However, the increase in income did not necessarily translate into purchasing power, the UNDP survey notes, as inflation has soared during the same period, with the price of food increasing by 35 per cent on average.
Following a drought at the start of this year, opium yields declined from an average of 38.5 kilograms per hectare (kg/ha), in 2021, to an estimated 26.7 kg/ha this year, resulting in a harvest of 6,200 tons – 10 per cent smaller than in 2021.
The 2022 harvest can be converted into 350-380 tons of heroin of export quality, said UNDP, at 50-70 per cent purity.
Seizure events collected by UNODC´s Drugs Monitoring Platform suggest that opiate trafficking from Afghanistan has been ongoing without interruption since August 2021. Afghan opiates supply some 80 per cent of all opiate users in the world.
