Opium production in Afghanistan has fallen by 95% since the Taliban government banned opium cultivation in April 2022, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report published on Sunday, cited by dpa and AFP.

However, the UN office is concerned about the “humanitarian consequences for many vulnerable rural communities” of this decline, with producers having to shift to alternative, far less profitable crops.

UNODC Executive Director Ghada Wali stressed that Afghanistan urgently needs significant investment in sustainable livelihoods and humanitarian assistance to ensure Afghan farmers have access to alternatives to the “opium economy”.

After the return to power of the Taliban in Kabul, in August 2021, against the background of the withdrawal of international forces, the supreme leader of the Taliban issued a decree banning the cultivation of poppies. In the past, about 90% of the world’s poppy production for opium and heroin came from Afghanistan.

By 2023, the value of Afghan opioid exports often exceeded the value of goods and services legally exported by the country. Many farmers have turned to growing wheat, which, however, brings much less income than opium.

The UN notes that almost 80% of Afghanistan’s population depends on agriculture, and Afghanistan is experiencing a drought for the third year in a row.

The cultivation of poppies was briefly banned in 2000 by the Taliban, months before their fundamentalist regime was toppled by an international coalition in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

During the next 20 years of guerrilla warfare against foreign forces, the Taliban instead taxed poppy growers in the regions they controlled, making the crop an important source of income for them. (Agerpress)