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Afghanistan opium poppies hit by mysterious disease - Yahoo! News
Farmers in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, the source of around 90 percent of the world's opium, agreed the harvest will fall this year.
The farmers and other experts cited high rainfall in some areas, drought in others, free seeds for alternatives such as wheat and good prices for food crops, and a mysterious disease withering poppies in some areas.
Tests by the interior ministry were inconclusive and more were being carried out, said the agency's representative in Kabul, Jean-Luc Lemahieu, adding that "plagues, pests, blight" had hit Afghanistan's poppy crop in 2002 and 2006.