February 6, 2008
U.N. Warns of Huge Crop of Afghan Opium Poppies
By CARLOTTA GALL
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Afghanistan will produce another enormous opium poppy crop this year, close to last year's record harvest, and Europe and other regions should brace themselves for the expected influx of heroin, the United Nations warned in its annual winter survey of poppy planting patterns.
Cultivation is still increasing in the insurgency-hit south and west of the country, the report said, and taxes on the crop have become a major source of revenue for the Taliban insurgency.
"This is a windfall for antigovernment forces, further evidence of the dangerous link between opium and insurgency," Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, wrote in the report's preface.
The report will be released by the Office on Drugs and Crime on Wednesday at an international donors conference in Tokyo. An advance copy was shown to The New York Times.
"Cultivation levels will be broadly similar to, perhaps slightly lower than, last year's record harvest," Mr. Costa said. There is some evidence that the sharp increases of recent years are leveling off, which is encouraging, he said, but the "total amount of opium being harvested remains shockingly high."
Afghanistan supplies 90 percent of the world's opium, the report said.
The cultivation of cannabis, the plant that yields marijuana and hashish, is increasing, the report added, making Afghanistan one of the biggest suppliers of cannabis as well.
The winter survey, which the United Nations teams conduct every year by talking to village leaders across the country, outlines trends in poppy cultivation. It is only an estimate because half of the country has not yet begun planting, and in the other half the plants are not yet visible beneath the snow.
In 2007, 477,000 acres were under poppy cultivation, yielding an estimated 9,000 tons of opium. The survey said the 2008 harvest would depend on levels of eradication and the weather. Good rainfall and water supply are expected to help the harvest in 2008, and no efforts at eradication were observed by mid-January, the report said.
The survey found that poppy cultivation was increasing in six provinces in southern and western Afghanistan. One of those provinces, Nimruz, was showing a sharp increase. Five provinces were expected to show no change, including Helmand, which produced 53 percent of Afghanistan's opium last year, and where Taliban insurgents control much of the countryside.
Ten provinces are expected to show a decrease in cultivation, and 12 are likely to remain poppy free. These figures will depend on how effectively the Afghan authorities wage prevention and eradication campaigns, the report said. Nangarhar Province is expected to show a sharp drop because of agreements made with district leaders, it said.
The Afghan government has opposed an aerial herbicide spraying program, advocated by the White House, fearing a potential backlash if people and food crops are harmed. However, a ground spraying program was being considered.
There is some evidence that agricultural assistance can persuade farmers not to grow poppies, the report said. Of the 469 villages visited by the United Nations teams over a month in December and January, a third had received assistance in the form of seeds, fertilizer and irrigation. A majority -- 67 percent -- of those that received assistance did not grow poppies, the report said.
The United Nations also said there was a strong link between instability and opium production. In the south and west, where security is worst, 100 percent of studied villages that had poor security cultivated poppies, the report said. At the same time, poppy cultivation is decreasing in places that have good security, it said.
Most poppy farmers in the south and west of the country said they paid a tax to mullahs, the Taliban, or local officials, the report said.