According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime ( UNODC), the 2014 Afghanistan Opium Survey found that the yields of opium production are estimated to reach 6,400 tons in 2014 compared to the previous year's total of 5,500 tons. 

 

This is largely attributed to a strong increase in yields reported in southern Afghanistan, which accounts for 69 percent of national production, the UN office said. 

 

"These increases come after record highs were recorded in 2013, when cultivation rose 36 percent and production by almost a half since 2012," said Farhan Haq, the deputy UN spokesman. 

 

At the launch of the report, UNODC Executive-Director Yury Fedotov warned that Afghanistan's narcotics³ problem remains⁴ a major global challenge and shared responsibility, saying that "the illicit⁵ opium economy and related criminality and corruption⁶ continue to undermine security, the rule of law, health and development in the region and beyond." 

 

Afghanistan produces some 90 percent of the world's illicit opiates. 

 

Helmand province, in the south, remains the country's major opium cultivating area, followed by Kandahar, Farah and Nangarhar.

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