Afghan farmers have lost income of more than $1 billion from opium sales after the Taliban outlawed poppy cultivation, according to a report from the UN drugs agency on November 5. Afghanistan was the world’s biggest opium producer when the Taliban seized power in August 2021. They pledged to wipe out the country’s drug cultivation industry and imposed a formal ban in April 2022, dealing a heavy blow to hundreds of thousands of farmers and day laborers who relied on proceeds from the crop to survive. Opium cultivation crashed by 95 percent after the ban, the report said.
Afghan Farmers Have Lost $1 Billion Since Taliban Banned Poppy Cultivation
An Afghan farmer harvests opium sap from a poppy field in the Fayzabad district of Badakhshan Province in May.