Opium farming takes root in Myanmar’s war-racked landscape

PEKON, Myanmar – Scraping opium resin off a seed pod in Myanmar’s remote poppy fields, displaced farmer Aung Hla describes the narcotic crop as his only prospect in a country made barren by conflict.

The 35-year-old was a rice farmer when the junta

seized power in a 2021 coup

, adding pro-democracy guerillas to the long-running civil conflict between the military and ethnic armed groups.

Four years on, the United Nations has said Myanmar is mired in a “polycrisis” of mutually compounding conflict, poverty and environmental damage.

Mr Aung Hla was forced off his land in Moe Bye village by fighting after the coup.

When he resettled, his usual crops were no longer profitable, but the hardy poppy promised “just enough for a livelihood”.

“Everyone thinks people grow poppy flowers to be rich, but we are just trying hard to get by,” he said in the rural Pekon township of eastern Shan state.

Mr Aung Hla says he regrets growing the substance – the core ingredient in heroin – but said the income is the only thing separating him from starvation.

“If anyone were in my shoes, they would likely do the same.”

Displaced and desperate

Myanmar’s opium production was previously second only to that of Afghanistan, where poppy farming flourished following the US-led invasion in the wake of the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York.

But after the Taliban government launched a crackdown, Myanmar overtook Afghanistan as the world’s biggest producer of opium in 2023, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Myanmar’s opiate economy, including the value of domestic consumption as well as exports abroad, is estimated at between US$589 million (S$785 million) and US$1.57 billion, according to the UNODC.

Between September and February each year, dozens of workers toil in Pekon’s fields, slicing immature poppy seed pods, which ooze a small amount of sticky brown resin.

Mr Aung Naing, 48, gently transfers the collected resin from a small trough onto a leaf plate.

Before the coup, which ended a brief experiment with democracy, Mr Aung Naing was a reformed opium farmer. But wartime hardship forced him back to the crop.

“There is more poppy cultivation because of difficulties in residents’ livelihoods,” he said.

“Most of the farmers who plant poppy are displaced,” he said. “Residents who can’t live in their villages and fled to the jungle are working in poppy fields.”

In Myanmar’s fringes, ethnic armed groups, border militias and the military all vie for control of local resources and the lucrative drug trade.

Mr Aung Naing said poppy earns only a slightly higher profit than food crops such as corn, bean curd and potatoes, which are also vulnerable to disease when it rains.

Fresh opium was generally sold by Myanmar farmers for just over US$300 a kilogram in 2024, according to the UNODC, a small fraction of what it fetches on the international black market.

And the crop is more costly to produce than rice – more labour-intensive, requiring expensive fertilisers and with small yields.

Mr Aung Naing said he makes just shy of a US$30 profit for each kilogram.

“How can we get rich from that?” he said.

‘Unsafe’

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates there are more than 3.5 million people displaced in Myanmar.

But fleeing conflict zones to farm opium does not guarantee safety.

“Military fighter jets are flying over us,” said Mr Aung Naing. “We are working in poppy fields with anxiety and fear. We feel unsafe.”

According to the UNODC, opium cultivation and production in Myanmar

decreased slightly

between 2023 and 2024 – in part due to ongoing clashes between armed groups.

Farmer Shwe Khine, 43, said: “If our country were at peace and there were industries offering many job opportunities in the region, we wouldn’t plant any poppy fields even if we were asked to.”

Mr Aung Hla agreed. With the war, he said, “we don’t have any choice”. AFP