Colombia says rise in coca cultivation shows why it was right to stop spraying

A new UN study showing a steep rise in the cultivation of the leaf used to make cocaine offers fresh support to Colombia’s recent decision to end the aerial spraying of drug crops with herbicides, government officials said on Thursday.

The area under coca cultivation rose 44% in 2014 to 69,000 hectares or 175,000 acres, according to a report released on Thursday by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, which monitors the crops by satellite. Potential cocaine production soared from 290 tonnes in 2013 to 442 tonnes in 2014, up 52%.

The report confirmed the trend found by a separate US study published in May just as the government of Juan Manuel Santos suspended the US-funded programme of aerial aspersion with the herbicide glyphosate, amid warnings it could cause cancer.

But the justice minister, Yesid Reyes, said the report showed that the aerial aspersion strategy was ineffective. “The lesson that these experiences leave us with is that repression of the illegal drug economy is an insufficient tool,” he said. “Aerial spraying with glyphosate is a good example of that.”

After spraying 1.5m hectares in the past 12 years, the total reduction of coca crops was just 12,000 hectares, Reyes said. Paraphrasing Albert Einstein, he added: “Insanity is to continue doing the same thing and expect different results.”

UNODC has said the suspension of aerial spraying was unlikely to affect the cultivation area because the most growth in area was found in zones where spraying was already off limits, such as nature reserves and indigenous reservations.

The government has said it will focus its fight against drugs on manual eradication, alternative development programmes and voluntary eradication efforts, and reached a partial agreement on the issue in ongoing peace negotiations with leftist rebels who currently reap huge profits from the drugs trade. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, Farc, have said they will sever ties with the trade if a peace deal is reached to end the country’s more than 50 years of internal conflict.

Launching a separate report last week, Bo Mathiasen, the head of the UNODC in Colombia, said that key elements for cutting coca production were to “end the conflict, for peasants to own their land and to strengthen the presence of the state in those areas where coca crops are present”.

The UN report showed much of the growth in coca crops came in the southern provinces of Putumayo and Caquetá, both areas where the Farc have a strong presence. In Putumayo alone, the area under coca cultivation skyrocketed 78%.

Citing unnamed sources, El Tiempo newspaper said that the Farc were encouraging farmers in those areas to plant coca to take advantage of the development programmes that will be offered by the government.

The UN report noted that despite the rise in production in Colombia, consumption in the US and Europe has dropped. “The market for the cocaine being produced in Colombia is not clear,” the UNODC said. “More supply implies a risk of higher consumption domestically or in the region.”