UN says rising opium prices threaten fight against drug production in Afghanistan

[News_Editor]

UN says rising opium prices threaten fight against drug production in Afghanistan

2011-01-21 16:43:39 GMT+7 (ICT)

NEW YORK (BNO NEWS) -- Rising opium prices may encourage Afghan farmers to plant more of the narcotic crop, reversing recent gains in the fight against drug production, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said Thursday.

The prices have soared due to market speculation that there will be shortages because of the opium blight that reduced production by half last year.

Military operations have also created uncertainty among opium farmers, the 2010 Afghanistan Opium Survey said.

"There is cause for concern. The market responded to the steep drop in opium production with an equally dramatic jump in the market price to more than double 2009 levels," said Yury Fedotov, the Executive Director of UNODC.

Prices had a steady decline from 2005 to 2009 thanks to a plant disease that ravaged the crop in the major opium poppy-growing provinces of Helmand and Kandahar.

Despite the drop in production, the gross income per hectare of opium cultivated increased by 36 per cent to $4,900.

The total value of exported opium and heroin was $1.4 billion, compared with $2.9 billion in 2009 – a 50 per cent drop. The gross export value in 2010 amounted to 11 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), compared to 26 per cent in 2009.

Afghan traffickers are heavily involved in shipping opiates – morphine and heroin – abroad, notably to Iran and Pakistan, and to a lesser extent, Central Asia.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2011-01-21