Poppy Cultivation Rising Again in Afghanistan: Up More Than Fourfold to 43,300 Hectares, UN Says

Some farmers in Afghanistan are turning back to poppy cultivation, and planting has risen significantly this year, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said on Thursday.

Four years ago the Taliban imposed a strict ban on opium cultivation, which had almost completely wiped poppy from the country's fields. The effect of that ban is now beginning to fade.

According to satellite imagery analysed by the UN, poppy cultivation across Afghanistan has risen more than fourfold this year to about 43,300 hectares. Farmers are hiding poppy plants inside crop fields or behind mud walls to evade Taliban officials.

The figure is still only about a quarter of the 2021 level. In 2021, the year before the ban was imposed, poppy was grown on 177,000 hectares in the country.

In the past, Afghanistan's poppy fields produced about 80 percent of the world's opium. That opium was used to make morphine as well as illegal drugs such as heroin.

According to UNODC, opium sales in Afghanistan earned about 525 million US dollars this year. Apart from 2022, when the ban sent opium prices soaring, it is the highest amount since 2018.

UNODC's country representative in Afghanistan, Pollek Oak Serei, told Reuters that many farmers have no alternative but to return to poppy. The agency says the shift could again affect heroin markets in distant regions such as Europe.

In the home of farmer Mohammad Daud, 28, in Baba Yusuf village in northern Balkh province, carpets still hang on the walls and light still reflects in ornate mirrors — reminders of the time when a single poppy crop paid his family's expenses for a whole year.

In an interview at his home, Daud said, 'We were doing well. Now my children are suffering from malnutrition.' He said his days are now spent working in cotton and wheat fields, and the income from them barely keeps the family going.

Daud said he is still obeying the ban. But on bad days he can earn only one-fortieth of what he once earned from poppy cultivation.

Not all of his neighbours are obeying the ban. According to UNODC, Balkh province was poppy-free last year, but poppy is being grown there again this year. Because of strict Taliban surveillance, very few farmers dare to admit it.

The Taliban has rejected the report's findings. It claims the real cultivation figure is about half the UN estimate and that efforts to eliminate poppy cultivation continue. The Taliban-run interior ministry did not respond to Reuters' request for comment.