Twenty acres of poppy fields grown by local people near the Soung-Du village, Lo-Bar-Kho Village Tract in Demawso township, Karenni state were destroyed by government officers and local prominent people on 23rd October.
Deputy Police Major Soe Moe Naing head of Demawso Township police station told Kantarawaddy Times that: “We regularly destroy poppies every year. They [the growers] said that rather than growing other crops they grow poppy because it is more profitable than other crops. That is why they are so keen on growing poppy.”
Destroying poppy fields in this way is regularly done every year to stop drug use, which causes damage to people and the whole country he added.
He said that a small amount of poppy is grown in Karenni State but more is grown in the mountain ranges bordering Shan State that are not accessible by vehicle.
U Moe Yu chairman of Soung-Du village said villagers grew poppy because with scarce farmland it was a way of earning a family livelihood and it paid for their children’s education.
He said: “If we grow paddy we will get 15 boxes of rice from a field which will only fetch 30,000 Kyats. If we grow poppy we will get a ball of opium that will sell for 600,000 Kyats.”
Deputy Police Major Hla Lwin, head of drug control police unit No. 20 said that to stop the growing of poppy the Burmese Government signed up to a five-year opium replacement project with the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC), which will soon be implemented.
He said: “The current plan is to plant rubber trees in poppy growing areas and to grow coffee plants between the rubber trees. Farmers will be able to get an income from rubber trees after six or seven years and from coffee plants after three and a half years. For those three and a half years we will support them to grow rice.”
U Moe Yu said that if the government implements the project the villagers of Soung-Du will also grow the replacement crops.
Deputy Police Major Hla Lwin said that in Karenni State the townships of Loikaw, Demawso and Hpruso are going to be included in the opium replacement project.
The government destroys poppy fields every year at the end of October or the beginning of November. A viss (A Burmese unit approximately equal to 1.6kg) of opium is sold for about 600,000 kyats locally.