Afghanistan's opium poppy cultivation fell to 10,200 hectares this year, one of the lowest levels recorded in the country's history, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said, but the Taliban ban has pushed farmers in northern provinces into severe economic hardship.
The nationwide ban has reduced cultivation from 232,000 hectares in 2022, before the Taliban returned to power, but caused a shift in cultivation patterns from traditional southern areas to northern provinces farther from direct Taliban control, UNODC said.
