The Taliban have curtailed poppy cultivation in Afghanistan and are warehousing opium in response to overproduction and falling prices on the world's opium market, the New York Times reported Nov. 27.

The Taliban's success in opium production has created a glut of the product on the market, forcing prices down by about 20 percent, said Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. As a result, the Taliban have stockpiled opium and are exerting less pressure on farmers to cultivate poppies. "They have called a moratorium of sorts as a way of keeping the stocks stable and supporting the price," Costa said.

Long the major source of financing for the insurgency, the opium trade has generated up to $300 million for the Taliban, according to the United Nations. Initial reports of falling opium production this year were touted as signs of progress in the drug war by U.S. officials, but Costa's remarks reflect a more pessimistic viewpoint.

A survey of Afghanistan's opium crop revealed that it is now focused primarily in the regions under strong Taliban influence. The report estimated a 19-percent reduction in acreage used for opium, but only a 6 percent decrease in total opium produced.  A good growing season in the arid southern provinces and systematic encouragement of opium cultivation by the Taliban are cited as reasons for the increased output per acre.

The dynamics of Afghan opium production pose problems for American and NATO forces trying to control the trade. Poppy eradication could drive the cost of opium up, making the product more valuable to the Taliban while angering Afghan farmers by depriving them of a way to make a living.

Costa said that disrupting the trade by attacking the markets where opium is bought and sold, along with the transport convoys and processing labs is a viable approach to controlling the trade.

Progress on the opium front, however, will be predicated on containing the growing insecurity in Afghanistan, Costa said.