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RADIO:
The UN says that the opium crop in Afghanistan is increasing for the third year running. According to their latest information Afghanistan is moving towards record levels of opium cultivation, as other markets fail, twelve years after the fall of the Taliban. Voice of Russia’s Nima Green reports.
An Afghan farmer walks amongst a waist high field of poppies, collecting the bulbous seed pods to sell on in what is an incredibly lucrative trade.
And it is a trade which, despite being illegal, shows no signs of abating.
The UN Drug and Crime report reveals that Afghanistan is likely to reach a near record level of opium cultivation in 2013.
Afghanistan already produces about 90 per cent of the world’s opium, and continued rapid increases in its cultivation are being blamed on the instability in several provinces across the country.
Efforts to destroy poppy fields and dismantle mobile drugs labs have been largely ineffective and unsustainable, which reflects particularly badly on Britain, designated the “lead nation” for counter-narcotics operations more than a decade ago.
Nima Sherpa Green 