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The Financial Times Limited 2007This year’s opium harvest in Afghanistan is projected to reach a record high, up 34 per cent on 2006, with Helmand province “single-handedly” becoming the world’s largest source of illicit drugs, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said on Monday.
Better yields have combined with a 17 per cent increase in land under cultivation to undermine poppy eradication efforts and produce a record harvest of 8,200 tonnes. With the increase in opium production, Afghanistan now accounts for 92 per cent of global production. The area of opium cultivation in Afghanistan is more than the combined total coca cultivation area in Latin America, the UNODC stated.
Most of the increased production is concentrated in unstable southern provinces that together account for 80 per cent of cultivation. The largest increase has been in the volatile province of Helmand, where British troops are fighting a tough battle against the insurgency. The number of northern and central provinces free of opium more than doubled, from six to 13. In Balkh, a northern province bordering Uzbekistan, opium cultivation has been brought down to zero from 7,200 hectares last year.
Referring to divergent trends in the north and south, Antonio Maria Costa, UNODC executive director, said poverty could not be used as an excuse since the south had some of the most fertile land, and provinces in the centre and north, where per capita income is half that of the south, are opium-free
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