Myanmar overtakes Afghanistan as world’s top opium producer: UN

Myanmar farmers now earn about 75 percent more from opium poppy farming, as average prices of the flower have reached about $355 per kilogramme, the report said.

Myanmar has become the world’s top producer of opium, overtaking Afghanistan in 2023, according to a new United Nations report.

The 95 percent decline in opium cultivation in Afghanistan after a drug ban by the Taliban in 2022 has seen global supply shift to Myanmar, where political, social and economic instability brought about by a 2021 coup drove many to poppy farming, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said on Tuesday.

Myanmar farmers now earn about 75 percent more from opium poppy farming, as average prices of the flower have reached about $355 per kilogramme, the report said.

From 2022 to 2023, Myanmar saw the estimated amount of land used to grow the illicit crop increase by 18 percent, from 40,100 to 47,000 hectares (99,000 to 116,000 acres).

“Although the area under cultivation has not returned to historic peaks of nearly 58,000 ha (143,000 acres) cultivated in 2013, after three consecutive years of increases, poppy cultivation in Myanmar is expanding and becoming more productive,” the report said.

Opium cultivation areas expanded most in Myanmar’s border regions in northern Shan state, followed by Chin and Kachin states, as yield expanded by 16 percent to 22.9 kilogrammes per hectare because of more sophisticated farming practices, it added.

The violent political turmoil in Myanmar has contributed to the opium production increase.

UNODC Regional Representative Jeremy Douglas said the “economic, security and governance disruptions that followed the military takeover of February 2021 continue to drive farmers in remote areas towards opium to make a living”.