Scraping opium resin off a seedpod in Myanmar's remote poppy fields ... but the hardy poppy promised "just enough for a ...

For those displaced by relentless conflict in the world’s biggest producer of opium, poppy farming offers a fragile lifeline.

Last year, Myanmar became the world's biggest producer of opium, harvesting 1,080 tons ... say they have little alternative but to grow the crop to survive.

If Alamogordo was Munchkin land, Dorothy and her band of misfits would travel the White Sands and cross the Organ Mountains ...

In 2024, opium prices reached $750 per kilogramme, a tenfold growth from $75 per kilogram in 2022 when the Taliban government banned poppy growing, the Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC ...

The economic crisis and war have pushed farmers and displaced people to turn to opium poppy cultivation ... In addition, intensifying fighting in growing regions and declining global demand ...

For farmers displaced by conflict, the hardy poppy is the only thing that keeps them from starving. Read more at straitstimes ...

Scraping opium resin off a seedpod in Myanmar's remote ... "Everyone thinks people grow poppy flowers to be rich, but we are just trying hard to get by," he told AFP in rural Pekon township ...