Afghanistan: New World Drug Report: Opium Production in Afghanistan Remained the Same in 2019

Jun 25, 2020 | Jelena Bjelica, Afghanistan Analysts Network
View Original

The United Nations Drugs and Crime Office’s (UNODC) World Drug Report, released today, shows a decrease in the cultivation of opium in Afghanistan in 2019 following price falls after the bumper years in 2017 and 2018. However, in 2019 when weather conditions were optimal for growing poppy and plant disease absent, yields were high. Overall, that meant production figures were the same as in 2018. With almost no eradication and diminishing alternative livelihoods initiatives, government actions had almost no effect on illicit farming. AAN’s Jelena Bjelica, who has been taking a closer look at UNODC’s findings, notes that this is the first year since 1994 that UNODC did not release its findings in an annual opium survey and says the government is suspected of having blocked publication.