Colombia Coca Growers Find Quitting Hard Amid Anti-Drug Assault
Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Two U.S.-made Black Hawk gunships dot the sky as Edelberto Narvaez strips leaves from coca bushes in the jungle-covered mountains of Colombia's Putumayo province.
``That means the crop sprayers are coming,'' says Narvaez, 37, who has four hectares (10 acres) planted with bushes that yield the raw material for cocaine. ``We have to work quickly,'' he tells his four workers.
The U.S. has spent more than $4 billion over six years to supply crop-spraying planes, helicopter escorts, arms and advisers to help Colombia combat the production of cocaine, marijuana and heroin by farmers like Narvaez. Plan Colombia, as the program is known, is taking a toll on coca growers, slashing output in Putumayo, according to United Nations estimates. Yet farmers are learning to adapt to fumigation, and production is rising in Peru and Bolivia.
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Ten kilometers to the east, Maria Ortensia Benavides isn't so fortunate. Benavides says her cattle and fruit trees don't provide enough income to maintain her family of six and she has no option but to grow coca.
``I have a few cows and I have plantain, but so does every farm for hundreds of kilometers around, so I can't sell it,'' says Benavides, who calculates her age as in the mid-fifties. ``Coca sells. I have no alternative.''
Benavides's income from coca has taken a dip because drug eradication workers sprayed her bushes. Still, 20 days later, the withered plants are already sprouting green leaves.
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aNK5nuwu0Mxg&refer=news_index
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