Coca growers can typically earn $2,500 a year in crop sales, according
to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Legal crops yield about $300 a
year. The discrepancy in profits inevitably forces many peasants to continue growing coca,
especially since alternative crops are harder to grow than coca and the yields are
unpredictable.
Several countries have established alternative development programs that include
cultivation of substitute crops, improved infrastructure, and access to markets.
Instituting these programs is a daunting undertaking, however, and problems are compounded
in regions of conflict and where violence is widespread. Peasants who voluntarily abandon
coca in exchange for government-sponsored projects growing coffee, fruits, or vegetables
face an uphill battle in cultivating these crops, says CSIS.
One factor keeping prices low for legal crops worldwide is subsidized farming in the
developed world. Subsidies lead to crop overproduction, driving agricultural prices down
and providing incentives to dump surpluses on world markets. Agriculture in developed
countries received support amounting to $311 billion in 2001, according to the
International Monetary Fund.
Banning illegal crop production has not been a successful solution to growing drug
crops. "In Colombia, despite the ban, just as many hectares of new coca fields are
brought under cultivation as the government manages to detect and destroy," says
University of Bonn professor Jürgen Pohlan.
A national program in place since 1995 to control cultivation of illegal drugs in
Colombia has had little success. Although the area used for cultivating opium has shrunk
to just under a third since 1992, the area used for growing coca has quadrupled over the
same period.
The Colombian government has urged farmers to cultivate Andean blackberries or Quito
oranges and made easy credit available for farmers switching over to these crops. The
discrepancy in moneymaking potential remains wide, however. Producing a kilo of tomatoes,
for example, costs about twice as the same amount of opium for substantially less profit.
Land area used for growing coca in the Chapare region of Bolivia has dropped by more
than 70% since 1989, thanks to a government-led initiative. The ecological costs have been
high and have inadvertently led to illegal crop harvesting in areas that are less
accessible to government drug fighters.
As illegal (and legal) crop growing shrinks, farmers and their families are forced to
move either to urban centers or other rural areas, says the Transnational Institute. The
forced migration has economic consequences throughout the industry: The temporary
workforce hired to harvest coca leaf and the service sector that develops around the coca
economy are forced to migrate also. Moving to provincial urban slums generates inhumane
living conditions, unemployment, and misery.
"One of the most important solutions in future will be to encourage
industrialization of the cities," says Pohlan. --Clifton Coles
Source: University of Bonn Media Relations Office, Regina-Pacis-Weg 3, D-53113
Bonn, Germany. Telephone 49-228/73-7647; e-mail presse.info@uni-bonn.de.
lternatives to growing drug crops in South America are not working, say
University of Bonn researchers. As the international war against drugs cracks down on
illegal crops, the monetary rewards of growing fruits and vegetables are not keeping pace
with raising coca and opium. The sheer battle for survival often forces farmers in
drug-producing countries into the drug business.