WASHINGTON, Sept 1: The US-backed strategy to fight Afghanistan’s massive drug trade has failed and the country is expected to have a bumper opium crop this year, the US State Department said on Friday.

It is a real source of concern not only for the Afghans but the international community, the departments spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters in Washington.

At a separate briefing, also at the State Department, Thomas Schweich, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for international narcotics, conceded that opium cultivation in Afghanistan is expected to hit record levels this year.

The trade in illicit drug was preventing Afghanistan from getting on its feet and developing an economy that can plug in to the modern world, said Mr McCormack.

Western officials in Afghanistan are forecasting a possible 40 per cent increase this year in land under opium poppy cultivation, despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent in counter-narcotics efforts. Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world’s opium and heroin supply.

I’m not here to put a happy face on this situation. I’m not going to say anything is truly working,” Mr Schweich said. It’s not a catastrophic failure, but it’s no success either. It needs refinement and it needs improvement.”

Mr Schweich did not have specifics on how much opium production numbers would likely rise in an upcoming report by the UN anti-drug agency. But he said US officials were prepared for a significant increase.

The high numbers, he said, were partly a reflection of a drug strategy that was only started last year. Funds for farmers to pursue livelihoods other than poppy production were distributed in a ‘spotty manner, he said.

There were also failures destroying the crop, and courts struggled to prosecute drug offenders.

“There was really no deterrent to planting in 2005. So people planted,” Mr Schweich said. He pointed out that poppy farmers can make more than 10 times what wheat farmers make.