Kabul - The area of Afghanistan under opium poppies is 78 percent greater than last year, a Western security official said on Wednesday.
A first assessment of the images showed 185 000 hectares of poppy fields compared to 104 000ha last year, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Official figures are due next month, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime would not comment before then. The figures are based on satellite images and ground surveys.
Afghanistan is by far the world's top producer of opium - used to make heroin and morphine - despite years of costly, internationally backed efforts to cut back the drug.
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The same Western official said last week that initial studies had suggested a 44 percent increase in poppy cultivation.
The yield of opium depends on factors including the weather and irrigation.
"According to the provisional figures, we should have 40 percent more production," the official said. Last year, output reached 39kg a hectare compared to 32kg in 2004, according to UN figures.
The country produced about 4 100 tons of opium last year, worth an estimated $2,7-billion, according to the UN.
It takes about 10kg of opium to produce one kilogram of heroin. - Sapa-AFP
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This article was originally published on page 2 of Cape Times on August 24, 2006
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