Overview
- The UN Office on Drugs and Crime said in a report published Thursday that opium cultivation rose from about 10,000 hectares in 2025 to 43,000 hectares in 2026 and production increased roughly fivefold.
- UN monitors estimate production climbed from about 300 tonnes to nearly 1,500 tonnes, a rebound that raises intermediary revenues to an estimated $525 million, near pre-ban averages.
- UNODC and field reporting point to extreme poverty and a large income gap—about $10,000 per hectare for opium versus roughly $770 per hectare for wheat in 2023—as the main reason farmers return to poppy.
- The Taliban maintain a 2022 ban and say they have destroyed fields, but the UN found enforcement gaps and widespread concealed plantings hidden among other crops or behind walls.
- The report warns of regional spillovers and links to global heroin supply, notes satellite signs of increased cultivation in Iran and Pakistan, and calls for funding of viable alternatives such as irrigation, roads, storage and market access.