Another 30,000 acres of opium poppy fields will be destroyed in four townships of southern Shan State by the end of this year, a police officer with Anti-Drug Squad (25) told Mizzima.
Sub Major Aung Soe Kyaing warned, however, that villagers will only stop growing opium if they can support themselves farming other crops.
Aung Soe Kyaing said his squad and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) could only support crop substitution projects in 80 villages of Ho Pong and Loi Lin townships.
He said police had to carefully time their eradication efforts to ensure that opium growers are not able to cultivate a second crop. “We have to wait till the poppy plants get to the budding stage before we destroy them so that the growers do not have enough time left to cultivate a second crop,” he explained. Residents will be educated about crop substitution even if they are not supplied with seeds to grow other crops.
The four townships where the opium eradication is occurring are Ho Pong, Pin Laung, Phel Khone and Si Sine. It began on 20 October.
The officer told Mizzima last month that the squad had started destroying opium poppy in the four townships on 4 September.
Myanmar is the second largest producer of opium in the world, trailing only Afghanistan, with Shan State producing 90% of the total, according to UNODC.
Opium was grown on more than 1.2 million acres in Myanmar during the last fiscal year. The Anti-Drug Squad in Shan State said it destroyed about 500,000 acres of opium poppy fields that year. The narcotic heroin is derived from opium.
