Poppy growers looking forward to bumper harvest

Poppy growers looking forward to bumper harvest

Poppy farmers along the Thai border are predicting a rich yield of opium this season compared to last year when poor weather ruined countless fields, according to sources. 

Many fields across from Maehongson, Chiangmai and Chiangrai are already near harvest. Farmers said they expected another harvest in December and a third one in January. 

Apart from the weather conditions, there were other favorable factors, they told S.H.A.N..

"For one thing the arrival last year of Wa troops in the areas where the Shan State Army used to be active against both the Burma Army and drug operators has turned the scales in favor of the investors both from within and without," he said. "The SSA has been less active since." 

Anti-narcotics operations of the SSA, led by Col Yawdserk, who is avowedly against drugs, led to retaliations by the Burma Army that escalated into military confrontations between Rangoon and Bangkok early this year. 

"The SSA is clearly in a bind," said one border watcher. "It cannot fight both the Wa and the Burmese at the same time like Khun Sa did before his surrender in 1996. Its military campaigns against the Burmese in the meanwhile are increasingly frowned upon by Bangkok. And if it does war with the Wa, it is only helping Rangoon." 

The SSA have strongholds opposite Maehongson, Chiangmai and Chiangrai provinces of Thailand. 

Updated 

21 October, a trader from Mongpan across the Salween arrived in Mongtaw, Mongton Township, with 200 viss of newly harvested opium from the Pangpi poppy fields. "He bought it for K. 100,000 per viss and could have sold it easily for B. 14,000," said the source. "But what he did was better: put it all in the local refinery."