Opium in Afghanistan--new report

UNODC has a new report on Opium in Afghanistan.

It says that cultivation (the number of hectares on which poppies are grown) has dropped 22%; but production (the amount of opium produced) has dropped by only 10%.

Farmers have made $438 million this year, a drop from last year by about 40%.

The report also notes the emergence of "narco-cartels" in the style of Colombia, among insurgents (Taliban), which means a deeper involvement in the drug business. Now it is not only by taxing the trade that insurgents are involved, but also by having more control over production, trafficking, etc.

It is thought that for the last few years Afghanistan has been producing somewhat more opium than the world demand, hence there is a surplus produced, and prices at the farm-gate (price that farmers get from traffickers) have decreased over the last few years. So the report notes that the lower production in 2009 can be interpreted as a market correction on the part of growers and traffickers.