Myanmar remained the world’s top producer of opium in 2024 despite a marginal drop in poppy cultivation, the United Nations said in a new report, warning that the country’s ongoing conflict could lead to further growth in the deadly industry.
In its annual Southeast Asia Opium Survey, released yesterday, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reported that the area of opium poppy under cultivation in Myanmar decreased by 4 percent from 47,100 to 45,200 hectares between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 growing seasons. It also noted an 8 percent decrease in production, from 1,080 tons to 995 tons, and a 4 percent decline in opium yields.
Despite these drops, the report’s findings, which were based on both on-the-ground investigations and satellite imagery, “point to an initial stabilization of cultivation at the current high levels, cementing Myanmar’s status as the world’s leading source of opium.”
The drop comes after several years of significant expansion of opium poppy cultivation, which the UNODC had attributed to conflict and instability that followed the military coup of February 2021. Last year, Myanmar overtook Afghanistan to become the world’s top opium producer, after the country’s Taliban government banned cultivation of opium poppies, resulting in a 95 percent decline in opium production. The UNODC recorded 47,100 hectares under cultivation, an 18 percent increase on the 40,100 during the 2021-22 growing season and a significant increase on the 30,200 hectares recorded in 2020-21.
“The amount of opium produced in Myanmar remains close to the highest levels we have seen since we first measured it more than 20 years ago,” UNODC Regional Rep Masood Karimipour said in a statement accompanying the release of the report. “As conflict dynamics in the country remain intense and the global supply chains adjust to the ban in Afghanistan, we see significant risk of a further expansion over the coming years.”
The UNODC stated that the slight decline “could indicate some degree of saturation in regional heroin markets supplied by Myanmar.” But citing information from the field, it said that the stagnation in cultivation also likely reflects the extent to which Myanmar’s conflicts have intensified over the past year. The survey covered the 2023-24 opium growing and harvesting season, which coincided with launch of the Operation 1027 offensive in northern Shan State.
This was followed by intense conflicts in opium-producing regions, which “have limited the mobility of rural population, and likely prevented farmers from accessing cultivation areas further away from their villages.” Unsurprisingly, the amount of area under cultivation in northern Shan State fell by 4 percent from the year prior. Cultivation in Shan State as a whole, the center of opium cultivation in Myanmar since British colonial times, fell by a similar percentage, although it increased in eastern Shan State by 10 percentage.
Overall, the UNODC warned that the leveling off opium cultivation did not necessarily mark a plateau in opium production and that there a further expansion of the trade was likely in the years to come.
While intense fighting between resistance groups and the Myanmar military could have disruptive impacts on the production of opium poppies, instability, insecurity, and economic atrophy have only increased the attractiveness of opium cultivation for smallholders who earn a living from the land. The report found that food security was “the most important reason reported for growing opium poppy.” It also found that “farmers lacking formal land tenure rights and those reporting higher levels of debt are more likely to engage in illicit opium cultivation.”
“Troublingly, we are seeing indicators that the expanding and intensifying conflict in Myanmar is also a growing concern,” said Karimipour. “So as the situation in Myanmar remains volatile and as the governance and humanitarian crises there continue, we may again see more people pushed into opium cultivation.”
The UNODC’s cautionary tone was underscored by the fact that opium cultivation expanded in Chin and Kayah states, not traditional areas of opium production. While the overall area under cultivation here remained small in comparison to other areas, they increased by 18 percent and 8 percent, respectively.
There are also external factors that could lead to further expansion of opium cultivation in Myanmar, particularly the collapse of opium cultivation in Afghanistan. “A global shortage of opiates, including heroin, could result in upward pressure on the price of opium in Myanmar once global supply chains and distribution networks adjust,” the report stated.