Record Opium Crop Possible In Afghanistan, U.N. Study Predicts

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
March 6, 2007
Pg. 12

By Carlotta Gall
KABUL, Afghanistan, March 5 — Afghanistan’s opium harvest could be bigger than last year’s record crop, with nearly half of the provinces showing an increase in planting this year, the director of the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime said here Monday.
His office released an assessment of winter planting trends, which shows an increase in 15 provinces, no change in 6 provinces, and a decrease in 7 provinces. Six of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces have no poppies, the study said.
Similar assessments of the size of the crop and harvest have proved accurate in the past. Afghanistan had a substantial increase of poppy cultivation last year, resulting in the highest recorded harvest, more than 6,000 tons, the drugs and crime office said.
Although some of the country is showing a decrease in poppy cultivation this year, the south, which has been plagued by the insurgency and traditionally has been the biggest source of poppies, is showing a continued increase, “which may result in an overall increase in opium poppy cultivation in 2007,” the report said.
The ample rainfall and snowfall this winter would also contribute to a good harvest in 2007, it said.
“The real increase is taking place in the provinces characterized by insurgency, and the problem there is not only a narcotic problem but an insurgency problem,” Antonio Maria Costa, the director of the drugs and crime office, based in Vienna, said in an interview. “The southern provinces are a textbook case of lawlessness prevailing, and therefore everybody from farmers and labs, traffickers and warlords are trying to profit from the bonanza of the product.”
Lack of security has also prevented aid from reaching farmers who want to change crops, he said, which has been a major factor in other areas in persuading farmers to abandon poppy growing.
Mr. Costa said a decrease in poppy growing across a band of provinces that have been the target of such an effort was an important development. Money was provided in those areas to help farmers change crops.
“We may be able to create a corridor, or an area ranging from Pakistan in the southeast to Turkmenistan in the northwest” that is free of opium, Mr. Costa said. The strategy was, he said, “Establish a stronghold of opium-free, or provinces with a negligible amount, and then slowly regain control of the other provinces.”
The intent of the big traffickers is uncertain because the huge crops last year produced a glut of opium on the world market, he said. The excess, which was worth about $1 billion, has not reached the market and depressed the price of opium, so someone is holding it for future sales, he said.
“Is it in the insurgents’ hands?” he asked. “It is not under the bed of the farmers,” he said, adding, “It could become a serious problem down the road.”
 
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