Afghanistan’s opium crop falls 20 percent as synthetic drugs surge

UN says the country devoted to opium poppies has dropped to a fraction of that cultivated earlier the Taliban’s narcotics prohibition successful 2022.

Afghanistan’s once-booming opium manufacture has shrunk dramatically with cultivation falling by 20 percent successful 2025, according to a United Nations study informing of a crisp emergence successful synthetic cause production.

The UN Office connected Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said connected Thursday that the country devoted to the cultivation of opium poppies dropped from 12,800 to 10,200 hectares (31,630 to 25,200 acres) this year, hardly a fraction of the 232,000 hectares (573,000 acres) cultivated earlier the Taliban’s narcotics prohibition took effect successful 2022.

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The Taliban, which returned to powerfulness successful 2021, outlawed poppy cultivation crossed the state a twelvemonth later, ending decades of reliance connected the illicit crop, which erstwhile made Afghanistan the world’s largest producer. In 2013, it supplied astir 74 percent of the opium worldwide.

“After the ban, galore farmers turned to increasing cereals and different crops. However, deteriorating upwind conditions owed to drought and debased rainfall person led to much than 40 percent of cultivation onshore being near fallow,” the UNODC said.

The bureau estimated Afghanistan’s full opium output astatine 296 tonnes successful 2024, placing it down Myanmar for the archetypal clip successful decades. Revenues for farmers person plunged by astir half, falling 48 percent to astir $134m this year.

While accumulation has dropped, prices stay high, astir 5 times the pre-ban average, arsenic constricted proviso continues to conscionable persistent demand.

Before the ban, Afghan farmers harvested much than 4,600 tonnes of opium each twelvemonth contempt facing detention, wounded oregon decease astatine the hands of information forces. Since the ban, astir of the processing instrumentality has been destroyed, and the geography of cultivation has shifted.

Rise of synthetic drugs

The UN study noted that poppy fields person moved to northeastern Afghanistan, peculiarly Badakhshan province, wherever immoderate farmers person resisted the crackdown. In May 2024, clashes betwixt farmers and Taliban forces enforcing the prohibition killed respective people.

The UN has urged the planetary assemblage to assistance Afghan farmers make alternate livelihoods, a telephone echoed by the Taliban government, which has nevertheless struggled to supply economical substitutes for those who erstwhile depended connected the opium trade.

At the aforesaid time, the UNODC warned that organised transgression networks are progressively turning to synthetic drugs, peculiarly methamphetamine, which are easier to nutrient and harder to detect. Seizures successful Afghanistan and neighbouring countries roseate by 50 percent successful precocious 2024 compared with the erstwhile year.

“Synthetic drugs look to person go a caller economical exemplary for organised transgression groups owed to their comparatively casual production, greater trouble successful detection, and comparative resilience to clime change,” the study said.

Afghanistan’s opium output peaked successful 2017 astatine astir 9,900 tonnes worthy $1.4bn, accounting for astir 7 percent of the country’s gross home product.