Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan is close to record levels a year after being nearly wiped out under the Taliban, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a report obtained today.
The assessment report, originally designed to survey the annual food deficit in drought-stricken Afghanistan, found poppy cultivation has surged under the government of President Hamid Karzai despite a ban and steps to entice farmers to stop planting the crop.
According to an FAO official in Kabul an Afghan farmer can make $14,000 per hectare of poppy cultivated land. The raw opium the farmer produces is refined into opium and heroin that is sold mostly to Europe.
Until 2001, Afghanistan was one of the world's largest producers of opium. The former Taliban regime outlawed its cultivation that year, but farmers resumed growing it after Karzai came to power in December.
With the cash from donor countries, Mr Karzai tried to ban poppy growing and promised to provide $350 for about a quarter of a hectare of poppy cultivated land.
His move came at a time when most opium fields were already sown and subsequently the payment scheme failed to achieve its objectives, the FAO report said.
"It is estimated that 2,952 tonnes of opium will be produced (in 2002)," the FAO said, referring to the usual drug producing regions in the south west.
The report predicted a larger area would be cultivated next year, driven in part by the large numbers of Afghans returning home looking for ways to earn money but also because the risks of prosecution were perceived as low given the large numbers of farmers involved.
Afghanistan's infrastructure has been shattered by 23 years of war and thousands of poor farmers rely on the drugs trade to feed their families.
There are few heroin addicts in the staunchly Islamic nation, which traditionally views drugs as a curse.