KABUL: Afghanistan, the world’s biggest opium producer, is set for another bumper crop in 2008, providing a windfall for the Taliban who tax farmers to finance their fight against government and foreign forces, the UN said on Wednesday.

More than six years after US-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban, the failure to bring spiralling opium production under control means Afghanistan is now locked in a vicious circle — where drug money fuels the Taliban insurgency and official corruption, weakening government control over large parts of the country, which in turn allows more opium to be produced.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) predicted the 2008 opium crop would be similar to, or slightly lower than, last year’s record harvest. In 2007, Afghanistan had more land growing drugs than Colombia, Bolivia and Peru combined.

“While it is encouraging that the dramatic increases of the past few years seem to be levelling off, the total amount of opium being harvested remains shockingly high,” said UNODC chief Antonio Maria Costa in a statement.

Opium is processed into heroin, increasingly inside Afghanistan, and smuggled mainly to Europe where users often turn to crime to pay for the highly addictive drug.

“Europe and other major heroin markets should brace themselves for the health and security consequences,” he said.

Opium poppy cultivation has become more concentrated in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban are strongest, while the more peaceful north is increasingly becoming poppy-free.

That trend is likely to increase this year, the UNODC said.

The number of poppy-free provinces is expected to rise from 12 in 2007, to 14 or 15, mostly in the north and east, out of a total of 34 Afghan provinces, the UNODC said.

But opium production continues to grow “at an alarming rate” in the south and west, it said. All the poppy farmers surveyed in southern Afghanistan said they paid a tax of 10 per cent of their opium income to the Taliban or corrupt government officials.

“In the north, we would need much more positive incentives for farmers, while in the south we have a very difficult situation with a kind of an alliance of convenience between drug-traffickers, corrupt officials and insurgents,” UNODC representative Christina Gynna Oguz told reporters in Tokyo.

“So there you would have to fight all these three elements, meaning that you must have more emphasis on interdiction and fighting corruption.”

The UN report comes as Afghan ministers and international donors are meeting in Japan to discuss developments in Afghanistan.

But on drugs, as with so many other areas of policy on Afghanistan, there is division both within the international community and with the Afghan government on how to deal with it.

The US government last year again pushed for aerial spraying of poppy crops, but dropped the idea after opposition from the Afghan government and Britain, which heads international counter-narcotics efforts in Afghanistan.

Instead, a limited trial of ground spraying has been agreed.

Britain is pushing for long-term investment in infrastructure and assistance for Afghan farmers.

Afghanistan is calling for more aid to stamp out opium production, but diplomats and analysts say President Hamid Karzai has failed to deal with corrupt officials in his government.

Efforts to eradicate opium fields or help farmers turn to other crops though can only have limited success in areas where the Taliban are strong and that is where most poppies are grown.

Afghan Minister of Counter Narcotics Khodaidad said his government’s “tree-planting campaign” has been gradually bearing fruit in helping farmers to turn to other crops.

“The tree-planting campaign is the best way to eradicate opium production in Afghanistan,” he said.

The southern province of Helmand, where mainly British troops are engaged in almost daily battles with the Taliban, accounted for 53 per cent of Afghan opium production in 2007. If Helmand were a country, it would still be the biggest opium producer.—Reuters