Poppy cultivation continues unabated

Poppy cultivation in beleaguered Afghanistan continues to grow, despite efforts to curb its spread, a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has revealed. In its annual survey, the Vienna-based agency found that opium poppy was now being planted in 28 of the country's 32 provinces. "This report sends the message that the international community must act now to prevent the country turning again into a 'failed state'," Mirella Dummar Frahi, an external relations officer for the agency, told IRIN on Thursday from UNODC headquarters in Vienna. Her comments echo those of the UNODC executive director, Antonio Maria Costa, who remarked on the occasion of the agency’s annual opium survey for the country on Wednesday that the country was now at a crossroads. "Either major surgical drug-control measures are taken now, or the drug cancer in Afghanistan will keep spreading, metastasise into corruption, violence and terrorism," he said. According to the Afghanistan Opium Survey for 2003, conducted in collaboration with the Afghan government for the first time, opium production in the country, had risen by 6 percent over last year to around 3,600 mt. The survey confirmed the country's place as the leading producer of opium, responsible for about three-quarters of the world’s output. The country became the world’s largest source of illicit opium under the Taliban rule in the late 1990s. And while a short-lived Taliban ban on opium cultivation in 2001 brought production to a record low of 185 mt that year, compared to 3,276 mt in 2000, it also caused a tenfold price increase, from an average of US $30 per kilogramme in 2000 to $300 in 2001, with a peak at close to $700, prompting massive resumption of cultivation in 2002. This year, the area under opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has increased by 8 percent, from 74,000 ha in 2002 to 80,000 ha now. Although Costa praised the Afghan administration’s counter-narcotic efforts, saluting Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s ban on opium cultivation and trafficking, the establishment of the national Counter-Narcotic Directorate, the adoption of the 10-year National Drug Control Strategy, and the new drug control law, he noted the challenges ahead. "Traffickers make huge sums of money; it is imperative to confront them with the penalty associated with breaking the law," he asserted. "Terrorists also take a cut from the opium trade; the drug power game poses a threat to peace and security within Afghanistan and beyond its borders." Commenting on efforts on the ground, Adam Bouloukos, a programme management officer for UNODC in the Afghan capital, Kabul, told IRIN that UNODC's portfolio was set up to mirror the Afghan national drug control strategy with activities on law enforcement (border police, interdiction police, investigation unit, capacity building), demand reduction (drug demand reduction action teams, training, education), capacity building, alternative livelihoods (project to begin in northern Badakhshan Province, coordinating government action on this), as well as legal reform (new drug law as of 20 October). But resources for such efforts were already well stretched. The number of provinces with opium cultivation had increased steadily from 18 in 1999 to a staggering 28 out of 32 provinces in 2003. "There is insufficient money and critical mass in alternative livelihoods and rural development to make a dent in poppy at this time. In addition, continued efforts and resources are needed to increase the risk of cultivation of poppy," Bouloukos said, adding that continued international commitment over the next years - many years, was needed, the national strategy being a 10-year process. This year’s survey also showed a decline in opium cultivation in Afghanistan’s southern provinces. A considerable decline was recorded in the provinces of Helmand (-49 percent) and Kandahar (-23 per cent), caused by planting restraint and government eradication measures. Given these shifts, Nangarhar had now become the top opium producing province, while in the northeast, close to the border with Tajikistan, Badakhshan had recorded yet another major increase (+55 percent).

UNODC Executive Director, Antonio Maria Costa

Meanwhile, prices of fresh opium have declined by 19 percent, from $350 per kilogramme last year to US $283 in 2003. As a consequence, the value of the opium harvest had declined from $1.2 billion in 2002 to $1.02 billion. This represents the equivalent of 23 per cent of the country’s $4.4 billion gross domestic product (GDP). These estimates do not include the profits subsequently made by traffickers who collected the fresh opium from farms and local bazaars, processing it into heroin and then transferring the aggregate to border areas for export. In a recent UNODC study (The Opium Economy in Afghanistan, published in spring 2003) the 2002 income accruing to traffickers in Afghanistan had been estimated at $1.3 billion. Therefore, the total income from opium-related activities - farming plus trafficking - in 2003 might have amounted to about half of the country’s GDP. "The Afghanistan opium economy is fuelled by low risk and high profit," Costa said. "This may give birth to narco-cartels and other forms of organised crime that undermine Karzai’s effort to promote democracy and rule of law." Additionally, domestic income distribution in the country was also affected. The 2003 harvest represents, on average, an annual income of about $3,900 per opium-growing family. This average masks regional disparities, ranging from $1,700 in the north to $6,800 in the south. The potential opium income per capita for the 1.7 million people involved in opium cultivation ranges from $259 in the north to more than $1,000 in the south. In comparison, on the basis of a population estimated at 24 million and a GDP estimated at $4.4 billion, Afghanistan had a GDP per capita of about $184 in 2002, the report said. [For a full copy of the UNODC report see: www.unodc.org]