The ban has slashed poppy production overall to just 10,200 hectares (25,200acres) this year, "one of the lowest levels ever recorded" in Afghanistan,the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said. In Badakhshan on the border with Tajikistan, surveyed in the agency's mostrecent report, poppy production has jumped since the Taliban returned topower in 2021. Many farmers are instead growing wheat and other cereals, but in 2023 "theaverage per-hectare income from wheat was just $770, whereas opium poppyyielded around $10,000 per hectare". Poppy revenues had long been a major source of Afghanistan's economic outputbefore the Taliban returned to power in 2021. Farmers' income from opium sales fell by nearly half, to $134 million thisyear from $260 million in 2024.

Source: Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha December 29, 2025 14:50 UTC