The area of Afghanistan planted with poppies increased by more than 40 percent this year compared to last, suggesting there will be a strong rise in opium production, a Western source said Thursday.
Around 150,000 hectares (370,500 acres) of poppies - the base ingredient for heroin - were cultivated in 2006 in Afghanistan compared to 104,000 hectares in 2005, the anti-drug official said on condition of anonymity.
This represents an increase of 44 percent in the area under cultivation at a time when the government and its international partners, notably the United States and Britain, have stepped up an anti-drug campaign that has already cost millions of dollars. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Afghan government would not comment on the figures, saying there were still assessing the situation.
Last year's fall followed a record cultivation of 131,000 hectares of poppies in 2004, which covered 2.9 percent of cultivable land.
The actual output depends on what each hectare delivers and is influenced by various factors including the weather and irrigation.
In 2005 output reached 39 kilograms (86 pounds) per hectare compared to 32 kilograms a year earlier, according to UNODC figures. The war-ravaged and drought-plagued country produced about 4,100 tonnes of opium last year, according to the UNODC, in a crop estimated to be worth 2.7 billion dollars.
It takes about 10 kilograms of opium to make one kilogram of heroin.