(Bangkok) Poppy cultivation exploded in Burma after the February 2021 military coup that erased years of progress in the fight against drug trafficking, the United Nations warned on Thursday.
The area of land used for poppy cultivation, from which opium and heroin are extracted, has increased by 33% in one year, to reach 40,100 hectares in 2022, according to a report by the United Nations Office against drugs and crime (UNODC).
Total production is estimated at 790 tonnes, an increase of 88% compared to the previous year, thanks in particular to more efficient farming techniques.
This is a record since 2013, said the study, which is based on satellite images and field studies.
These figures mark a break after six years of decline until 2020, which correspond with the democratic parenthesis initiated by the civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, detained since the putsch.
“The economic, security and political upheavals that followed the coup […] converged,” noted Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia.
” Farmers […] northern Shan State (East, where 85% of the areas devoted to poppy are located, editor’s note) or the border regions did not have much choice other than to return to poppy cultivation,” he said. he stated, quoted in the statement.
Burma’s poppy economy is valued at $660 million to two billion, or 1 to 3 percent of GDP, amid expanding synthetic drug production, according to UNODC.
The average price per kilo paid to the farmer has exploded by 69% in one year, reaching $281 in 2022, according to the report.
Due to the economic turmoil that followed the coup, some 40% of the population was living below the poverty line in 2022, a rising figure that erased almost a decade of progress, according to the Bank world.
Many workers have had to leave urban areas for poppy fields in the countryside, said Jeremy Douglas.
Farmers need help to develop income from crops other than poppies, said Benedikt Hofman, UNODC Burma officer.
“Without alternatives or economic stability, it is likely that poppy cultivation and production will continue to grow,” he said in the statement.