BABA YUSUF, Afghanistan: Afghanistan's opium trade is recovering despite a strict Taliban ban, as poverty pushes farmers back to poppy. Sales are estimated to have reached US$525 million this year, the highest total since 2018 apart from 2022, when the ban sent prices soaring, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said on October 29.

The Taliban began enforcing the ban four years ago, and poppy almost disappeared. But legal crops often bring too little income, weakening compliance for many poor farming families.

Afghanistan once produced about 80 percent of the world's opium, used to make morphine and illegal drugs such as heroin. The rise could affect heroin markets as far away as Europe.

UNODC representative Polleak Ok Serei said many farmers had little choice but to return to poppy. Farmer Dawood said he was still obeying the ban, but on a bad day earned just one-fortieth of what he previously made from poppy.

Other farmers have resumed planting. Balkh province, which UNODC found free of poppy last year, has seen cultivation return, although farmers are reluctant to admit it.

Satellite images analyzed by the United Nations show cultivation has more than quadrupled since 2025, reaching an estimated 43,300 hectares this year. Farmers hide poppy among cereal crops and behind walls. The area remains about a quarter of the 177,000 hectares planted in 2021, before the ban.

The Taliban rejected the report, saying cultivation was around half the UN estimate and eradication efforts continued. Its Interior Ministry did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Economic hardship is affecting children. UN agencies warned this month that 10 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces had critical levels of child malnutrition this year. That number could rise to 14 provinces in 2027.

Despite better harvests, high costs and low crop prices are limiting low-income families' access to food. Foreign aid cuts and Afghanistan's isolation over restrictions on women's rights have added to the pressure.

At the Alam Khil health center in Balkh, doctors and patients linked rising severe malnutrition mainly to falling farm income. Tahira, whose husband grows cotton, waited with her seven-month-old son, Benjamin, who had fever and diarrhea. The family struggled to meet basic needs. "Our lives used to be good," she said.

The clinic stands beside unpicked cotton fields. Falling farm earnings have made poppy more attractive despite the ban.

A large return to cultivation could affect countries far beyond Afghanistan. Analysts warn trafficking networks could move opiates abroad. Paddy Ginn, of the Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, said these networks made the outlook deeply troubling.

Before the ban, Afghan opium fuelled drug-related health crises, corruption along routes to Europe and deadly clashes between anti-narcotics forces and smugglers.

After 2022, stockpiles helped fill the global supply gap and limited price increases in Europe. This reduced farmers' incentive to break the ban. UNODC warned on October 29 that reserves may be running low, making renewed cultivation more attractive.

The Taliban considers the ban a major achievement and has used it to seek international recognition. However, officials acknowledge that farmers need other ways to earn a living. Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said this month that support for alternative livelihoods was essential to maintain the campaign.

Ok Serei said there had not been enough support for alternative livelihoods from the Taliban government or the international community.

The Taliban imposed an earlier opium ban in 2000, but it collapsed about a year later after US-led forces removed the group from power following the September 11, 2001 attacks. The current ban has lasted longer, but farmers face harsher conditions, including droughts that have reduced water supplies.