U.N.: Opium Yield Falls in Afghanistan 30.08.2005 KABUL, Afghanistan - Opium yield in Afghanistan dropped by just 2 percent this year despite a major clampdown on poppy farmers that sharply reduced the amount of land used to grow the narcotic, the United Nations anti-drug chief said Monday. The amount of land being cultivated was reduced by 21 percent by the crackdown but the fields in production produced a bumper crop of 4,100 tons thanks to heavy rains after years of drought, said Antonio Maria Costa, the director for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. Last year's yield was 4,200 tons. Afghanistan is still estimated to produce 87 percent of the world's supply of both opium and its derivative, heroin, Costa said. He predicted it would take 20 years to eradicate cultivation of drugs — a mainstay of many of Afghanistan's impoverished farmers, despite government warnings against growing poppies and the destruction of some crops by authorities. "We see a significant improvement in the amount of land cultivated in Afghanistan, a major reduction. One field out of five that was cultivated in 2004 was not cultivated this year," Costa, who is visiting Afghanistan, told The Associated Press in an interview. But he said that "heavy rainfall, snowfall and no infestation of crops resulted in a very significant increase in productivity." A report by the U.N. agency said the total amount of land being used to grow poppies dropped from 323,570 acres in 2004 to 256,880 acres this year. But the jump in crop yield — the opium harvested from each acre of poppies — was 22 percent, it added. The report said drug production in some parts of the country had dropped sharply, but in other areas it had boomed, including in southern Nimroz province where there had been a 1,370 percent increase. The United States, Britain and other countries have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into an anti-drug campaign in Afghanistan after opium and heroin production ballooned in recent years, sparking warnings the country was fast becoming a "narco-state" less than four years after the U.S.-led invasion ended its role as a haven for al-Qaida. The cash was used to train police units to destroy laboratories, arrest smugglers and destroy opium crops, as well as to fund projects to help farmers grow legal crops. Costa praised President Hamid Karzai and his ministers in trying to eradicate drug production, but said some provincial governors and other officials were involved in the drug trade and should be removed. "Together with the removal of corrupt governors, we are championing the indictment of officials who are corrupt or warlords who have benefited from the poppies," he said. Costa predicted that it may take up to 20 years to totally eradicate poppy production in Afghanistan, comparing the challenge to long campaigns to get rid of drug cultivation in Pakistan, Thailand and elsewhere. << | >> |
Search for Jobs in:
Afghanistan Kabul Mumbai Dehli Karachi Islamabad Abu dhabi Dehli Singapur London New York Los Angeles Canada
Afghanistan Kabul Mumbai Dehli Karachi Islamabad Abu dhabi Dehli Singapur London New York Los Angeles Canada
Afghanistan Says It Will Sign Cluster Bomb Treaty
French hostage in Kabul released
Rice arrives in India in wake of attacks
2 U.S. Soldiers in Afghan Abuse Probe
2 G.I.?s Investigated
Strategy Shift Poses Stiff Challenge for Obama
U.S. deaths in Afghanistan drop sharply
A brave woman in Afghanistan
Photos
