Afghanistan increased its opium yield in 2006 by roughly 49 per cent from a year earlier and pushed global opium production to a new record high, a UN report said today.
Opium production increased from 4,100 tonnes in 2005 to 6,100 tonnes in 2006, according to the 2007 World Drug Report released by the Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Opium is the main ingredient for heroin.
In 2006, Afghanistan accounted for 92 per cent of global illicit opium production, up from 70 per cent in 2000 and 52 per cent a decade earlier. The higher yields in Afghanistan have brought global opium production to a new record high of 6,610 tonnes in 2006, a 43 per cent increase over 2005.
The area under opium poppy cultivation in the country also expanded, from 257,000 acres in 2005, to 407,715 acres in 2006 - an increase of about 59 per cent.
"This is the largest area under opium poppy cultivation ever recorded in Afghanistan," the report said, noting that 62 per cent of the cultivation was concentrated in the country's southern region.
UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa warned that Afghanistan's insurgency-plagued Helmand province was becoming the world's biggest drug supplier, with illicit cultivation there larger than in the rest of the country put together.
Early indications suggest Afghanistan could see a further increase in opium production in 2007, the report said. "Developments in Afghanistan will continue to determine the levels of global opium production," it added.
An increase in Afghanistan's opium cultivation in 2006 offset the sixth straight year of decline in opium cultivation in southeast Asia.