Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Afghanistan harvested its biggest wheat crop in 50 years as rains boosted yields and farmers switched from growing poppies that make the country the world’s largest opium producer, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said.

Growers produced an estimated 4.1 million metric tons of the grain this year, almost triple the 2008 total and the most since at least 1960, the first year the Department of Agriculture kept records for the country.

“For many Afghans, this year’s bumper crop means a good winter,” Ashley Jackson, spokeswoman for Oxfam International, said by telephone from the capital, Kabul. “There are still pockets of crop failure, though, that need to be addressed, and a bumper crop this year does not mean a bumper crop next year.”

Improving food security is essential in Afghanistan, where decades of war have driven poorer farmers from the land or forced them to switch to growing opium poppies, aid workers said. The trade in opium, the raw ingredient for heroin, is worth as much as $3 billion annually to traffickers, warlords and the Taliban, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Last month was the deadliest yet for the U.S. in eight years of fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, with 55 U.S. military personnel killed. President Barack Obama is weighing whether to send as many as 40,000 more soldiers to the country, while pressing other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to put more resources into the war.

Poppy Production

Afghanistan’s wheat boom helped halve poppy production in the grain-belt provinces from 2004 levels and forced opium growers to use five southern and eastern provinces, according to the Afghan government’s 2009 national development plan.

The number of acres harvested rose 56 percent this year to the second-highest on record, the USDA estimates, as last year’s surge in wheat prices to more than 20 afghanis (41 cents) a kilogram, 90 percent above the four-year average, prompted farmers that stayed in business to grow more of the cereal. Price increases in Afghanistan, five-fold in some provinces, also lured some growers to replace drought-resistant opium with wheat, according to a United Nations report last year.

A farm forecast map of the country for this year is green for all nine wheat-belt provinces along the eastern border with Iran and Turkmenistan, indicating surpluses of more than 50,000 tons in each. Overproduction of at least 25,000 tons is forecast in six more provinces, with only seven expecting deficits of at least 50,000 tons.

Food Aid

The increase in local and global wheat supplies pushed prices down in the middle of this year making it easier for aid agencies to meet food needs, said Christian Dennys, representative for Cooperation for Peace and Unity Afghanistan, a non-governmental organization that works in aid delivery, conflict resolution and “peace building.”

Stockpiles of wheat and other cereals are now in place in most areas of the country for winter that starts in the next few weeks. They should allow agencies to direct more aid toward improving health care, education and other development resources, Dennys said.

Afghanistan’s rice production doubled from last year while output of pomegranates, touted as an export-ready alternative to opium, rose 55 percent, USAID estimates.

This year’s bumper crops are unlikely to eliminate hunger in Afghanistan, where the U.S. Agency for International Development estimates 6 million Afghans, about one-fifth of the population, don’t have enough food and where the poorest farmers may be one bad crop away from becoming refugees in their own country.

“Years of war have worn down their coping strategies,” Dennys said. “They’ve sold many of their possessions off to survive and, then, they have nothing left but their land or livestock to sell.”

Afghan Drought

Some Afghan farmers were forced out of wheat farming in 2008 when rains about 75 percent below normal slashed yields, cutting output by about two-thirds, said Oxfam’s Jackson.

The drought forced some families in the central Uruzgan province to move out of the area, becoming “internally displaced persons,” Dennys said.

This year Uruzgan is forecast to have a wheat surplus of as much as 25,000 tons, the USDA says.

Aid and development groups said it’s unlikely that Afghanistan will have consecutive bumper crops as many farms depend on getting enough rain at the right time of year. Work remains to be done to improve irrigation systems, building storage areas and combating soil erosion, Ashley said.

The UN’s $600 million 2009 humanitarian action plan for Afghanistan called for spending $355 million on food security and agriculture.

“Agriculture will determine whether Afghanistan will succeed or fail,” said Mohammad Asif Rahimi, minister of agriculture, irrigation and livestock, commenting on the plan last year.

To contact the reporter for this story: Dave McCombs in Tokyo at dmccombs@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 5, 2009 20:13 EST