UN: Record Afghan opium output prompts cheaper US heroin supply

Afghan farmers harvest opium sap from a poppy field in Surkh Rod District, of Nangarhar province near Jalalabad on May 5, 2015

Vienna (AFP) - Opium cultivation and production in Afghanistan have reached record levels, triggering "a large increase" in cheaper heroin supply in the US, the United Nations said on Friday.

Afghan poppy fields covered some 224,000 hectares (553,500 acres) in 2014 -- a seven-percent rise from the 209,000 hectares the previous year, according to a new study by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).