Pubdate: Wed, 12 Apr 2000
Source: Christian Science Monitor (US)
Copyright: 2000 The Christian Science Publishing Society.
Contact:  One Norway Street, Boston, MA 02115
Fax: (617) 450-2031
Website: http://www.csmonitor.com/
Forum: http://www.csmonitor.com/atcsmonitor/vox/p-vox.html
Author: Howard LaFranchi, Staff Writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Bookmark: MAP'S link to Latin America items is:
http://www.mapinc.org/latin.htm

ANDEAN DRUG BATTLE BEARS FRUIT

Today Colombian President Andres Pastrana is lobbying Washington for $1.6 
billion to fight drugs.

AGUAYTIA, PERU -- Standing knee high in a field of young green palm plants, 
Dionisio Flores Ortiz recalls how not long ago he and the farmers with 
plots around his would have been up to their waists in coca - the raw 
material for cocaine.

"Now we're going to be trafficking something else," he says, breaking into 
a smile as he pulls on a palm that will eventually be harvested for hearts 
of palm. "The farmers here just want to support their families and get a 
little ahead. As long as there's a market for these new products, this 
change can be permanent."

Mr. Flores - and several hundred other campesinos with land on the 
outskirts of this former stronghold of coca production in the Peruvian 
jungle - are part of a "change" with potential for strong repercussions in 
narcotics-consuming countries like the United States.

Once, along with neighboring Bolivia (the world's premier producer of 
coca), Peru over the last four years has cut production by 66 percent, 
according to the US State Department. Over the same period Bolivia's coca 
acreage has tumbled by more than half.

Today, Colombian President Andres Pastrana is lobbying legislators in 
Washington for a $1.6 billion aid package aimed at stifling his country's 
coca industry - the fastest growing in the Andes region.

Just how this has been accomplished - and how permanent the success is - 
remains open to debate. Proponents of alternative development say a 
combination of stiff drug interdiction, illicit crop eradication, and 
stable markets for new crops can wean farmers from growing coca.

Critics insist the reduction to date has simply been market-driven, with a 
combination of lower demand in the US and rising production costs in 
traditional growing areas.

And the big question mark for both sides is Colombia. Land dedicated to 
coca production there skyrocketed nearly 150 percent in the four years 
ending in 1999. That jump limited the overall drop in Andean coca acreage 
dedicated to coca production to 15 percent.

Colombia's industrial-size coca plantations and a hot guerrilla war make 
for new challenges that coca's slayers in Peru and Bolivia don't face.

US and Peruvian officials insist illegal coca cultivation can be wiped out 
of Peru and the Andes in this decade. The key, they say, is the 
interdiction and alternative-development combination. Interdiction must 
eliminate farmers' attraction to growing coca. An integrated program of 
substitute crops, infrastructure, and marketing know-how is needed to give 
farmers a stable income alternative. And this is what is starting to 
happen, officials say.

"We've seen that this can work, but only if you have 'carrot and stick' 
applied in a careful combination," says Curtis Kamman, US ambassador in 
Colombia, who before was ambassador to Bolivia. "What you need is law 
enforcement convincing the campesinos that they risk their crops being 
eradicated, or risk being put in jail. But they will continue growing it," 
he adds, "if they don't have an alternative that provides a fairly assured 
income."

But people like Hugo Cabiesas, a narcotics-cultivation expert in Lima, say 
the "substantial decline in coca acreage" has only been "a virtual 
success," a temporary shift in supply and demand.

Interdiction did break up the air bridge traffickers used to ferry Peruvian 
coca to Colombia for processing into cocaine, says Mr. Cabiesas, while 
higher production costs on Peru's small plots also tarnished Peruvian 
coca's shine. Those factors drove the price of Peruvian coca (and thus 
production) down.

In Aguaytia, the fall in coca prices has opened a window of opportunity for 
alternative development. In addition to Flores's hearts of palm, farmers 
are developing a banana and plantain cooperative with their own label, and 
planting

pineapples (one of the few crops that can be planted on former coca fields).

Some are also testing camu-camu, a berry-like fruit high in vitamin C that 
already has found a market in Japan.

But others say the sacrifice and patience asked of campesinos is taking a 
toll. "While we're getting production up and our markets established we 
don't have money to pay our workers," says Edgar Merino Alado, president of 
the Aguaytia area El Dorado plantain and banana cooperative. "Between that 
and the price of coca leaf going back up, some people are opting to go back 
to the mountains to harvest the coca fields the army missed."

With funding from the US government's USAID development program and the 
US-based Winrock International agricultural development institute, the El 
Dorado cooperative has begun raising more-resistant and productive plantain 
and banana varieties. The integrated program also includes new farming 
techniques, short-term income-producing projects for both men and women 
like road building, and training in national and international marketing.

"The assumption has been that these farmers will always be able to make a 
better living off coca, but we're proving that's not true," says David 
Bathrick, director of Winrock's Peru projects. Winrock studies comparing 
incomes from coca, traditional crops, and "new" crops show the latter 
offering a marked advantage over the first two.

Some development experts criticize the US-funded alternative-development 
program for being too heavy on infrastructure. But proponents like 
Ambassador Kamman emphasize that roads are vital. "You can carry several 
thousand dollars in cocaine paste through the jungle on your back," notes 
"but not thousands of dollars in bananas or other fruit." For that, he 
adds, you need roads.

Yet even optimists see stiff challenges ahead. For one thing, coca 
eradication has been focused on areas where coca cultivation was the least 
established and where crop-substitution efforts had the best chance of success.

"Now," says a US official in Lima "we're going to be hitting areas where 
resistance to eradication and alternative development could be greater." 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake