Afghanistan produced record levels of opium in 2013--despite nearly $7 billion spent by the U. S. to combat the problem, according to a sobering United Nations report out Wednesday [November 13, 2013]. Propelled by strong demand and an insurgency that has become more hands-on in the trade, cultivation of opium poppies, which are processed into heroin, rose 36 percent, amounting to 209,000 hectares [a hectare of land is about two and a half acres].
Afghanistan remains the world's largest opium producer--last year accounting for 75 percent of the world's heroin supply. This is despite more than a decade's worth of international efforts to persuade poppy farmers to switch to other crops such as wheat….
At $160 to $200 for one kilogram of dry opium, compared to 41 cents for one kilogram of wheat, farmers are making a strictly economic decision when they decide to get into the opium trade…
Aarne Heikkila, producer, NBC News
Afghanistan remains the world's largest opium producer--last year accounting for 75 percent of the world's heroin supply. This is despite more than a decade's worth of international efforts to persuade poppy farmers to switch to other crops such as wheat….
At $160 to $200 for one kilogram of dry opium, compared to 41 cents for one kilogram of wheat, farmers are making a strictly economic decision when they decide to get into the opium trade…
Aarne Heikkila, producer, NBC News
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