Myanmar’s opium output this year will be more than 25 percent higher than last year – and production is driven higher because poverty stricken farmers simply don’t have any other alternatives to make a living.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says in its annual Southeast Asia Opium Survey that Myanmar will produce 870 metric tons of opium in 2013, a 26 percent rise over 2012.  With that much, Myanmar is second only to Afghanistan in opium production.  Criminal trafficking is actually being aided by infrastructure development where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos converge, and area known as the infamous “Golden Triangle”.

“Surveys of farmers in poppy-growing villages indicate that the money made from poppy cultivation remains an essential part of family income.  Villagers threatened with food insecurity and poverty need sustainable alternatives, or they will continue out of desperation to turn to growing this cash crop,” said UNODC executive director Yury Fedotov.

In 1999, Myanmar’s military government declared a plan to eliminate illicit crop production by 2014.  Production bottomed out in 2006, but since then has increased year after year.  A reformed-minded government replaced the military junta in 2011.