I worked at a telecom company in Afghanistan a few years ago when the country was relatively safe. I'd like to leave HNer's with some statistics that are not in

I worked at a telecom company in Afghanistan a few years ago when the country was relatively safe. I'd like to leave HNer's with some statistics that are not included in the NYTimes article that might explain why it is so vital to move any part of the agricultural crop away from opium: Afghanistan's opium production currently goes into more than 90% of heroin worldwide. According to a UN doc cited on wikipedia, production reached a peak in 1999 with a bumper crop of 4,500 metric tons. [1] Shortly afterwards in 2000, 99% of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan was wiped out by the Taliban, who controlled Afghanistan with an iron fist and declared the cultivation of poppy "un-islamic". This amounted to a 75% reduction in the world supply of opium. So total world production was ~6,000 metric tons in 1999. According to this 2014 UN report [2] the total area of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan was estimated at 224,000 hectares with an average yield of 28.7kg/hectare. Converting this to metric tons: 224,000 * 28.7 / 1,000 = 6,429 metric tons of opium produced. Report cites a possible range from 5,100-7,800 metric tons produced. So not only is Afghanistan back to pre-Taliban production levels, it is producing more than the entire world production of opium in 1999. This is just 15 years after a 99% eradication of the crop in the region. Ironically, opium production has ramped up massively since 2002, under US/Karzai governance. The farm gate value of this opium is only $850m. Using an average of the conversion ratios cited in the report (18.5:1 for pure heroin, 9.6:1 for export-grade heroin) and a price of $60,000USD/kg of heroin [3] we get a total processed value of $27.4bn. That's a crazy amount of value locked into processing and distribution. Any amount of possible change towards other crops will be hugely beneficial for smaller-scale farmers who do not wish (or do not have the connections) to sell into the drug trade, and who only see 1/30th of the processed value of their crop. Not to mention it will be putting a dent in the world supply of heroin. This is an ambitious and well-intentioned project. I'm glad to see HN sponsoring these types of ventures, especially as it falls outside the scope of the tech world and does not have the TAM/SAM/SOM projections that I'm sure VCs dream about. Good luck to the founding team, and stay safe. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan#cite_ref-13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanista... [2] https://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/Afghan-opium-survey-2014.pdf https://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/... [3] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-drug-dealers-next-door-how-nyc-heroin-mills-are-blending-in/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-drug-dealers-next-door-how-n...