Alternative crop programs for Myanmar opium farmers: Doomed to fail?

In the coming years, Myanmar will legally sell coffee to China instead of illicitly selling opium; at least that is how the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is planning (again) to tackle rising poppy cultivation in the country.

A recent New York Times report into Myanmar's rising opium poppy cultivation highlighted how the UNODC is trying to promote an alternative development program that would allow poor farmers in southern Shan State where the majority is grown to abandon their poppy fields and replace them with an expensive, high-grade variety of coffee.

Click here to read the full article.

Keep up-to-date with drug policy developments by subscribing to the IDPC Monthly Alert.