FACTBOX-Afghan opium production at record levels

(Reuters) - Afghanistan produced 93 percent of the world's opium in 2007, up from 92 percent last year, the annual United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report released on Monday said. Here are some key facts from the report and the opium cultivation cycle in Afghanistan.

POPPIES BLOOM WITH INSTABILITY AND VIOLENCE:

-- Some 80 percent of opium poppies were grown in a handful of provinces along the border with Pakistan, where instability is greatest, the UNODC said.

HELMAND, TOP OPIUM PRODUCING PROVINCE:

-- The volatile southern province of Helmand, where the Taliban insurgency is concentrated, produced more than half of Afghanistan's opium crop last year. Opium cultivation rose 48 percent to 102,770 hectares in Helmand in the past year.

AFGHANISTAN IS THE WORLD'S TOP PRODUCER:

-- "The amount of Afghan land used for growing opium is now larger than the combined total under coca cultivation in Latin America," the UNODC said.

SUCCESSFUL CONTROL EFFORTS IN NORTH:

-- In the more peaceful north of Afghanistan there has been some progress. Out of 34 Afghan provinces, the number of those declared opium-free more than doubled to 13 in 2007 from six last year -- most of them in the north and centre of the country.

THE CLIMATE ALSO AIDS POPPY CULTIVATION:

-- The opium poppy, botanical name "Papaver somniferum", flourishes in warm dry climates. It has higher drought-resistance than most other crops, particularly wheat, but needs to be on well-irrigated land.

FAST TURNOVER FROM PLANTING TO HARVEST:

-- The planting cycle is six to seven months. Its distinctive brightly colored flowers appear three months after seeds are planted. In Afghanistan, poppy flowers are normally white or purple but they can also be red. Petals fall away to expose a spherical seed pod. Inside it is the opaque, milky sap that is opium in its natural form.

HARVESTING AND REFINING:

-- Sap is extracted by slitting the capsule. Farmers collect the oozing gum and wrap the lumps of opium in plastic. Each capsule is slit six or seven times before all the sap is drained.

-- Farmers can process the hundreds of seeds left inside the capsule to make edible oil. Dried stalks and empty pods are used as animal fodder.

SELLING THE OPIUM:

-- Most Afghan opium is bought directly from farmers by buyers and dealers. The UNODC found the average farm-gate price of fresh opium at harvest time had decreased from $94 per kilogram (2.2 lb) to $86 over the last year.

-- The merchant or broker arranges for the pungent gum-like opium to be transported to a refinery, from where it emerges as a compact morphine brick. The morphine base can be smoked in a pipe or be further processed into heroin.

Sources: Reuters, UNODC