UN: Afghan opium production halved

VIENNA - Afghanistan's opium production declined by almost half this year due largely to the spread of a disease that damaged poppy plants, but the amount of land used for growing the crop remained the same, the UN's drug agency said on Thursday.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said Afghanistan's opium production in 2010 is estimated at 3,600 metric tons, a 48 percent decrease from 6,900 tons in 2009 and the lowest since 2003. Opium is the main ingredient in heroin.

The drop was caused for the most part by a poppy plant infection that started to appear after spring flowering and hit the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar especially hard, according to the summary of UNODC's annual Afghan Opium Survey. The two provinces are major growing areas in southern Afghanistan, and the center of the Taliban-led insurgency.