UN appeal set to tackle Afghan opium production

Poverty and unemployment in Afghanistan must be addressed if serious inroads are to be made into ending opium production, the UN has said.

The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) today appealed for $25.5 million to help fund alternative crop cultivation schemes – which will help transform the economy away from its reliance on opium production.

Afghanistan is the world's largest opium producer, providing almost three-quarters of global opium production. With an average price for raw opium now at $283 per kilogram, poppy cultivation is much more profitable for farmers than the production of other commodities. In 2003, poppy cultivation generated a gross income of around $1 billion - around $3,900 per opium-growing family.

According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), poppy production amounted to 3,600 tonnes last year. Around 1.7 million Afghans are directly involved in the process.

The five-year initiative will finance agricultural development projects in four main poppy producing provinces - Badakhshan, Helmand, Kandahar and Nangarhar - targeting some 1.5 million people.

Angelika Schückler of the FAO Agricultural Management, Marketing and Finance Service, said that "rural poverty" and the lack of income" were the main reasons why farmers produce opium.

"The project aims to rehabilitate agricultural infrastructure in some of the main poppy producing areas and to boost horticulture, livestock and cash crop production in order to create alternative livelihoods for small farmers, landless workers and vulnerable groups," she said.

While cutting the production of poppy, the project will bring environmental and economic benefits to war-ravaged Afghanistan by restoring tree nurseries, building small irrigation dams and improving animal health services, the FAO said.

(gmcg)