KABUL (SW): The Ministry of Counter-Narcotics and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) revealed on Wednesday that the poppy cultivation has increased by 87 percent this year.
Jawed Ahmad, director for the Ministry of Counter-Narcotics, told the presser in Kabul in this connection that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan was estimated at 328,000 hectares in 2017, a 63% increase or 127,000 hectares more compared to the previous year. “In 2017, the potential production of opium has reached to nine thousand metric tons which is 87% more than that in 2016”.
According to the study, this level of opium poppy cultivation is a new record high and exceeds the formerly highest value recorded in 2014 (224,000 hectares) by 104,000 hectares or 46%. Strong increases were observed in almost all major poppy cultivating provinces.
Representatives of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) expressed their support for the Afghan government against poppy cultivation. According to the director for the Ministry of Counter-Narcotics, reasons behind this surge are increased violence, poverty and decrease in international aid for counter-narcotics efforts.
Abdul Khalil Bakhtyari, director at the Ministry of Interior, told the moot in this connection that the security forces have conducted more than two thousand counter-narcotics operations, and have arrested more than two thousand smugglers. This comprised 13 foreigners including five citizens of Pakistan and eight of Iran.
A previous UN report in 2011 had stated that the net value of poppy cultivated in Afghanistan was worth some $68 billion. Only $470 million of it goes to the Afghan farmers, up to $150 to the Taliban, $1.2 billion to the local smugglers, $2 billion to Pakistani smugglers and the rest goes to the international smugglers.
ENDS
