Experts question coca fumigation success - June 16, 2004
Meeting in the Peruvian capital, coca eradication experts said a reported drop in the crop’s Colombian acreage is misleading because yield per acre has increased. The Lima meeting, May 27, was organized by the Andean Committee for Alternative Development (CADA), representing the governments of Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Peru and Ecuador. The United States, which funds massive aerial spraying of Colombian coca, has reported that the number of acres devoted to the country’s crop last year dropped 21 percent. But traffickers are developing new and more potent strains of the plant, while growers are moving to smaller and more remote tracts that are harder to detect and more hazardous to spray, the New York Times reported June 9. While the U.S. market consumes 250-300 metric tons of cocaine annually, the Andean region still produces 835 metric tons per year, the newspaper added, keeping cocaine prices low and purity high in the United States. Sen. Gerardo Antonio Jumí Tapias, who occupies a Colombian legislative seat reserved for indigenous people, said the spraying is hurting human health and the environment, the Medellín daily El Colombiano reported. The spraying is also drawing protest for its effects across the Ecuadoran border. On June 3, protesters “fumigated” the Colombian embassy in Quito, the Ecuadoran capital. (RM in Bogotá)