Paul Vrieze in Shan state

Wednesday 22 June 2016 05.00 BST

U Bo sits on the floor of his bamboo hut and puts away a plastic tray covered with a small heap of what looks like sticky, brown tar. This is the day’s opium harvest, which he and his family scraped off the bulbs of their two-acre field of poppies.

His farm, at the foot of a lush mountain, in eastern Myanmar’s Shan state, includes another two acres of rice. Opium will provide his family of seven in Pe Kin village with much-needed cash – his 6kg of opium could fetch about $1,800 (£1,250) – while the paddy provides food.
To win the war on drugs, stop brutalising farmers who grow them
Pien Metaal

“We grow poppies because other [cash] crops don’t grow well here. Corn is not good with the poor soil and weather,” says U Bo, 57, a farmer from the Kayan ethnic group.

Read more:

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jun/22/opium-bulbs-poppies-myanmar-drug-crop-or-lifeline-for-poor-farmers