Â鶹ӰÊÓ

Afghanistan is the largest drug-producing region in the world, according to a UN report released Monday.

A record-number of opium crops have sprouted in Afghan fields this year, fuelling a multibillion-dollar trade.

"The situation is dramatic and getting worse by the day,'' said Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of UNODC.

"No other country in the world has ever had such a large amount of farmland used for illegal activity, beside China 100 years ago,'' when it was a major opium producer, Costa said in an interview with The Associated Press in Kabul on Monday.

"It's a startling increase and it shows us the narco-economy is growing in southern Afghanistan," Noreen MacDonald of the Senlis Council told Â鶹ӰÊÓ.

The amount of land dedicated to opium crops is already 17 per cent larger than last year's record number. The most recent figures show opium growing on 193,000 hectares of land. In 2006, opium was found on 165,000 hectares.

Opium production will rise 34 per cent over 2006. This year, 8,100 tonnes of opium is expected to be produced compared to 6,000 tonnes in 2006, according to the  by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime.

While the crop's farm value is estimated to be about US$1 billion, the street value of the drug is much higher.

Afghanistan is responsible for 93 per cent of the world's opium production, which is the raw material for heroin. The country's opium output has doubled since two years ago.

An RCMP official said earlier this month that about 60 per cent of heroin on Canadian streets comes from Afghan opium.

The UN report does not discuss how much of the opium actually gets transformed into heroin in Afghanistan before it is smuggled out of the country.

In an effort to curb production, the U.S. had offered to spray this year's crop but Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai said no. He feared the herbicides would have a negative effect on livestock, water and other crops. U.S. officials called those fears unfounded.

The crops are flourishing because of the Taliban insurgency and corrupt officials in Karzai's government, the report says.

Opium production in the south, where provinces are hit hard by Taliban insurgency, has exploded into unprecedented numbers. Helmand province alone accounts for more than half of the national total of opium fields, with 103,000 hectares under cultivation.

"The government has lost control of this territory because of the presence of the insurgents, because of the presence of the terrorists, whether Taliban or splinter al Qaeda groups,'' Costa said.

Elsewhere, there has actually been an increase in the number of poppy-free provinces from six to 13 in the past year.

Costa said before the Taliban was ousted from power by the U.S. in 2001, they fought hard to curb opium cultivation. Now, the drug trade produces money to help fight the insurgency, she said.

"It is clearly documented now that insurgents actively promote or allow and then take advantage of the cultivation, refining and the trafficking of opium,'' Costa said.

According to the report, 3.3 million Afghans are believed to be involved in opium production. The Taliban is said to be protecting convoys smuggling drugs into neighbouring countries.

Costa said there was a "tremendous amount of collusion'' between traffickers and government officials.

A government official agreed the country's anti-narcotics policies have not worked in Afghanistan's south and western regions. Gen. Khodaidad, the country's acting counter-narcotics minister, blamed police failures, corrupt local officials, failure in eradication and open borders with Iran to the west and Pakistan to the east.

The minister, who goes by one name, said the government needs to review its policies at a national conference set to be held on Wednesday.

He also said he'd like to see the corrupt officials who have eased the way for drug traffickers punished and those who helped curb drug protection and trade rewarded.

MacDonald said fighting poppy-growing only angers poor farmers.

"It's difficult to win the hearts and minds of people when you're plowing up their agricultural fields every season and they have no other way to feed their families," she said.

The Senlis Council is among the groups who think that Afghan farmers should be allowed to grow opium poppies for processing into morphine, which is in short supply globally.

With a report from CTV's Roger Smith and files from The Associated Press