POVERTY: UNODC warning on opium cultivation in Myanmar

BANGKOK, 24 June 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN A growing concern for the region

A rapid increase in opium cultivation in Myanmar's eastern and southern areas of Shan State since 2009 is an alarming trend for Southeast Asia, says a new report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on 24 June.
“The resurgence of opium cultivation is a great concern for the region,” Gary Lewis, UNODC’s regional representative for East Asia and the Pacific, told IRIN.
Opium production in Myanmar has increased by 250 tons - from 330 in 2009 to 580 currently. “Poor farmers in Shan State turn to poppy farming, knowing the risks, because they need a cash income to buy rice and pay back debts incurred to feed their families,” Lewis explained. To reduce cultivation of the drug, “farmers need to be given alternatives,” he said.
The East Asia-Pacific region has three million injecting drug users, 600,000 of whom have become infected with HIV as a result, according to UNODC.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93062

POVERTY: MYANMAR: Addicted to poppy farming

 Photo: Manoocher Deghati/IRIN: Some 200,000 families in Myanmar's Shan State produce the country's entire annual supply of opium (file photo)

SHAN STATE, 13 January 2011 (IRIN) - Poverty and lucrative profits make poppy cultivation increasingly attractive to farmers who would otherwise produce legal crops to feed their families and make a living, say experts.
"More of the rural poor continue to be drawn into participating in the illicit drug trade as a last means of finding money to feed their families," Jason Eligh, Country Representative for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Myanmar, told IRIN.
Shan State, 400km north of the capital, Yangon, between Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, produces more than 90 percent of all opium in Myanmar, an estimated 35,000 tons in 2010, according to UNODC.
UNODC is the only international agency directly involved in supporting different crops in poppy cultivation areas, with three agriculture projects in southern Shan State trying to reach 100,000 people. However, much more needs to be done to stop farmers from reverting to opium production, said Eligh.
"UNODC wants to see a strong alternative development response, one that includes market access, community mobilization, access to credit, improved technology and better overall infrastructure in rural areas."

Cash crop
In 2010, a higher proportion of farmers' income came from poppies than in previous years, reversing a trend of steady decline in the past six years.
Between 2003 and 2009, the proportion of total household income from poppies fell from 70 to 20 percent, according to a December 2010 UNODC report.
In 2010, however, high prices paid for poppy in Myanmar and low food security throughout the country meant income from the seed contributed to 43 percent of total household income in Shan State, the report stated. About a quarter of the state's population was involved, estimate aid agencies.
Though prices at source (farm-gate) for poppy fell marginally in 2010 from 2009, opium overall remained lucrative at US$305 per kilo. Poppy farmers can earn 13 times more money cultivating poppies than rice, making poppies the cash crop of choice for most, based on the UNODC report.
Farmers forced out of poppy cultivation are having problems growing other food to survive. "I grow enough vegetables to keep my family going, but that is all," U Tin Kyi told IRIN.
U Tin Kyi grew poppy seeds to supplement his income until authorities destroyed his fields two years ago. Like many of his neighbours in this hilltop village, U Tin Kyi has little extra income. "The fuel cost to get to the market outweighs any profit I would make from selling vegetables," he told IRIN.

Eradication efforts
Poppy cultivation continued to rise in Myanmar in 2010, despite an official 15-year drug elimination plan developed in the late 1990s. In 2009, the authorities initiated the final five-year phase of this plan.
Government figures claim 8,268 hectares of poppy-cultivating land were eradicated in 2010, a 102 percent increase on the previous year.
But other groups calculate that Myanmar's poppy cultivation area and yield actually increased during this period.
"In 2010 we estimate that there [was] 20 percent more area under opium poppy cultivation, a 46 percent increase in average opium yield, and a 17 percent increase in the number of households involved in domestic opium poppy cultivation," said Eligh of UNODC.
In northern Shan State, in 2008, government figures showed 25 percent of poppy fields were destroyed, but a 2010 report by Palaung Women's Organization (PWO), an NGO based in Mae Sot along the Thai-Myanmar border, stated only 11 percent of poppy fields had been eradicated.
Government anti-drug teams were only destroying easily visible poppy fields and filing false eradication data to the police headquarters, the report said. At the same time, farmers were forced to pay taxes to continue growing poppies.
In Mantong village in northern Shan State, PWO estimated the government collected approximately $37,000 in poppy taxes in 2008.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91614

POVERTY: MYANMAR: Concerns grow over opium and amphetamine production

  Photo: Shoresh Kalantari/UNAMA:  Second in production only to Afghanistan, Myanmar's opium cultivation is spreading, especially in conflict areas

BANGKOK, 13 December 2010 (IRIN) - With on-going fighting in the north and continued food insecurity nationwide, researchers warn that combating the significant increases in the production and trafficking of opium and amphetamines in Myanmar will be difficult.
The mix of money, drugs and firearms in the context of poverty and conflict is conducive to the widespread production and trafficking of drugs, said Gary Lewis, Southeast Asia representative for the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), at the launch of the latest regional assessment.
Since 2006, land used for opium production has steadily increased in Myanmar, the second largest opium poppy grower in the world, after Afghanistan.
In 2010, an estimated 1.2 million people cultivated opium, and crop area increased by 20 percent from 2009 to 38,100 hectares. Correspondingly, Myanmar’s share of global opium production has increased from 5 percent in 2009 to 14 percent, the report showed.

Methamphetamine increase
Alongside the rise in opium production, experts witnessed a three-fold increase in methamphetamine pill seizures in Myanmar and throughout the region in the past year.
Most of the drug production is designed for export to the region and internationally, the report says. However, experts expressed alarm over indications that within Myanmar, the largest producer of amphetamine type stimulants (ATS), its use is on the rise.
“There is now a twin problem of opium production and amphetamine type stimulants trafficking,” Lewis said. “More alternative livelihoods need to be made available to local communities.”

Few options, limited access
With food security worsening, opium cultivation and ATS trafficking have become more tempting as a source of income.
“We need to change the conditions that motivate this behaviour,” Lewis said.
According to the report, 77 percent of the 1.2 million farmers who are growing poppy are doing it to pay for food, while 9 percent, some 100,000 farmers, grow it for personal use.
Among poppy-producing villages in the northeastern Shan province, where 92 percent of the country’s production originates, an estimated 40 percent of the population do not have enough food to last the year, an increase from 28 percent in 2009, the report said.
Four out of every 10 households in this region grow opium poppy and most of the ATS manufacturing plants are also based here.
According to the surveys, some farmers who stopped growing opium last year were drawn back into it this year to pay back loans used to buy food. At this rate, convincing farmers to abandon opium – the most lucrative crop - will be difficult.
Finally, in the context of conflict between the ethnic minority groups and the government, reaching vulnerable areas is difficult. “Access continues to be a problem,” Jason Eligh, Myanmar's acting UNODC representative, said.
“It is clear that production and trafficking of drugs in this context cannot be ignored,” Lewis said. “We are calling for more resources and attention to the human security situation [particularly] in Shan state.”
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91358