Opium production has decreased due to harsh weather despite the fact that poppy cultivation saw an increase in the 2009-2010 season compared to the 2008-2009 season in Burma, poppy farmers in Shan State said.
Opium production was initially expected to be more in 2009-2010, as cultivation had doubled in some cases compared to the last poppy (2008-09) season. However, fields were destroyed by unbalanced weather because of heavy rains and later lack of rain, said a poppy farmer from Shan State South’s Kunhing Township, who recently fled to Thailand.
“We thought the last poppy 2008-2009 season was bad, but the 2009-2010 has been worse than we expected,” he said. “Last year I got 10 viss (1 viss= 1.6kg), but this year it was only 40 Khan (65.2 gram).”
Likewise, overall opium production in Homong sub-township, Mawkmai Township was 600 viss (960 kg), down from last year’s 900 viss (1, 440kg), said a source from the area.
The same condition was also reported in other parts of Shan State that is Shan State North and East.
According to the Shan Drug Watch 2009-2010 report, which will be released by the Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN), it is because of El Nino, a change in the weather which happens, when the usual cool ocean current in the Pacific is replaced by a warm current, had not only devastated most of the poppy fields but also fields growing other crops, paddy, corn and the like.
The report will be launched on 26 June, World’s Anti-Narcotics Day, according to Khuensai Jaiyen, Editor-in-Chief.
The report also said that opium poppy was grown more in northern Shan State particularly in areas under the control of the Burmese Army and its militias than in areas under the ceasefire groups in the 2009-2010 season.
For instance, in Namkham Township, on the Sino-Burma border, poppy fields were seen almost everywhere, said a housewife in the area, “Because where there is a militia, the Burmese Army does not bother.” The Burmese Army has 17 militia forces in Namkham.
In 1999, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) embarked on a 15-year plan to eradicate cultivation and production of all drugs in Burma by 2014.
But the SHAN’s last year 2009 report pointed out, only seven out of 22 townships targeted in the first phase, from 1999 to 2004, could claim drug-free status, whereas phase two, from 2004 to 2009, could claim six out of 20 townships – 16 in Shan State, four in Kachin – as drug free.
