WASHINGTON, Dec 20: Poppy is still a major problem in Afghanistan despite international efforts to eradicate the crop, a senior US official said on Thursday. James Kunder, who is in charge of US reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, told a briefing in Washington that Afghanistan had bumper opium crops this year.

The White House recently reported that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan doubled between 2002 and 2003, 36 times higher than in the last year of rule by the Taliban.

The area planted with poppies was 152,000 acres in 2003, compared to 76,900 acres in 2002. In 2001, when the Taliban still ruled Afghanistan, 4,210 acres were used for growing heroin, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said.

Mr Kunder, a deputy assistant administrator at the US Agency for International Development, said the United States was trying to rebuild the agricultural infrastructure in Afghanistan to stop the farmers from growing poppy.

Independent observers say that despite being in power for almost two years, the Karzai government lacks the security apparatus and the force needed to implement the ban on poppy production.

In its report on the drug situation in Afghanistan, the White House also acknowledged: “A challenging security situation ... has complicated significantly the task of implementing counter-narcotics assistance programmes and will continue to do so for the immediate future.”