A third of children aged under five in Myanmar are suffering from malnutrition because of the failure of the military regime to reform the country, the World Food Program (WFP) said on Tuesday.

In a gloomy assessment of agriculture under the junta, the WFP also warned that frustrated farmers could increase opium production because they were stopped from going to market to sell legal crops.

The WFP said the UN currently fed about 596,000 people in Myanmar but was being prevented by the junta from assessing a true national figure of those in need, which was likely to be much higher.

“At the moment we cannot move beyond our current assistance which is relief because of the policies of the government,” WFP deputy executive director Sheila Sisulu told reporters in Bangkok after visiting Myanmar.

“A third of children (under five) nationwide are suffering from malnutrition.

“The policies of government are in fact impoverishing these people.”

Sisulu said tough restrictions on farmers’ movements in northern Myanmar meant they could not get to market with crops which are grown to replace opium. This raises fears that part of the government’s policy to cut drug production could fail.

Farmers have been offered incentives to grow crops instead of opium as part of a pledge by Myanmar, the world’s second largest opium producer after Afghanistan, to cut back on the illegal harvests.

“It should be a concern and this is also why we felt the government needs to be aware that their polices may be counterproductive to the very thing they are trying to get rid of,” she said.

“Their (opium growers’) income has been slashed by close to 70 percent and they use most of the remainder on food,” she said, adding the program was currently providing aid to 180,000 former opium farmers.

The junta has ruled Myanmar since a 1962 coup. But the international community led by the US has imposed sanctions because of the lack of democratic reforms and the continued detention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.