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Finding alternatives to coca production in Colombia
Farmers in Colombia’s major coca-growing province of Putumayo are abandoning coca to develop an economy based on legal, sustainable alternatives.
Working with NGOs and local producer associations, Chemonics is helping Putumayo’s farmers, including 13 indigenous groups, make the transition. In just over a year, close to 15,000 hectares of coca have been eradicated and more than 20,000 hectares converted to licit crops, benefiting some 16,000 families.
In a recent visit to Washington, Putumayo Governor Ivan Guerrero spoke of his province’s struggle to rid itself of coca and of the results gained with assistance from the USAID-funded Colombia Alternative Development project managed by Chemonics.
“Abandoning the coca culture must happen at all levels — in the hearts and minds of the Putumayo people,” Guerrero told the audience at a Colombian Embassy-sponsored presentation held at Chemonics’ home office. To make this happen, the government has built a relationship with local communities based on trust, encouraging farmers to propose alternatives that will rid the province of coca, he said.
The project has already met some of its five-year targets less than two years since it was launched in 2001, said project supervisor Gordon Bremer. Despite fear of reprisal from armed groups, Putumayo’s farmers have signed agreements with the project to voluntarily eradicate illicit crops in their communities.
Colombia’s principal leftist guerrilla group, FARC, has had a strong presence in Putumayo, a heavily forested province in the southern Amazon, for more than 25 years. Over the past five years, paramilitary groups have waged a bitter war for control of this lucrative coca-growing region. In 2001, the area dedicated to coca production was estimated to be 47,000 hectares, about one-third of the total coca production area in Colombia.
“Putumayo has been stigmatized by the guerrilla presence, but we want to achieve a licit and sustainable economy with social justice,” said Guerrero, who met with the U.S. State Department, members of Congress, and USAID during his visit to DC.
Putumayo residents show a great willingness to shake off the influence of the armed groups, the governor added. They want to “rid the area of the fuel that feeds the violence and to build back everything that coca has destroyed in the past 25 years.”
Farmers are more encouraged by the hope of building a legitimate economic base than by the threat of forced eradication by aerial fumigation, said Bremer. “Two-thirds of people said that by getting rid of coca, they could rid their families of death, violence, and crime. This program allows them to become a community again by rebuilding the social structure.”
Through an initiative called “Root by Root,” Chemonics works with 126 indigenous communities, helping them build ceremonial longhouses, replant subsistence crops, and return to sustainable forestry management and products. Other alternative economic resources include raising livestock and producing traditional crops for sales in the region.
Through the program, the communities have built 12 schools, four indigenous community sites, and a radio station with equipment donated by Telecom, the national telephone company.
“Effective assistance after eradication depends on a mix of job opportunities, the creation of temporary employment in road construction, and other subsidized activities,” said Bremer.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has hailed Colombia’s efforts, reporting a 30-percent drop in coca cultivation nationwide from 2001 to 2002, which has removed “over 100 tons of cocaine from world markets.” According to the UN survey, Putumayo heads the list of provinces that have successfully eradicated illicit crops.
Over the next three years, Chemonics plans to build on these early successes to strengthen producer associations, develop marketing chains, and support new agricultural activities in drug production zones, using a participatory approach to develop viable projects.
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