Ditching coca for other crops, Colombia's farmers ask: Where do we sell?
| La Carmelita, Putumayo, Colombia
By the time he made it to the final booth at the open-air community center in this small Amazonian town, Rafael Pardo, Colombia鈥檚 high commissioner for post-conflict, human rights, and security, was loaded up with more produce than he could carry.
Melon, yucca, sugar cane, black pepper, pineapple, cacao, ground corn, squishy white 肠补尘辫别蝉颈苍辞听(peasant farmer) cheese 鈥撀燼 healthy sampling of the rich agrarian potential the government hopes to foster in the impoverished, war-torn countryside. For years, the economy in states like Putumayo, near the Ecuadorean border, revolved almost exclusively around a single crop: coca, used to make cocaine. But the government is trying to change that, capitalizing on recent peace accords to end decades of drug-fueled conflict.
鈥淗ere, there鈥檚 obviously no shortage of options going forward,鈥� Mr. Pardo says at the event, which La Carmelita residents organized to mark the start of a local coca substitution program. It鈥檚 one of five national pilots launched as part of Colombia鈥檚 historic 2016 peace accord between the administration of Nobel peace laureate President Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
But, Mr. Prado says, 鈥淚t鈥檚 not what the soil can produce so much as what the producer can sell.鈥�
For decades, the FARC used revenue from the booming Colombian coca trade to finance its fight with the government. Now the rebels, who completed their transition to a civilian political movement last week, are cooperating with state officials to establish an institutional presence in their former strongholds: police stations, hospitals, even banks. It鈥檚 an opportunity to heal a fragmented nation 鈥撀燼nd a high-stakes test of a government long characterized as ineffective and corrupt.
Since May, some 75,000 coca-farming families across Colombia have volunteered for a outlined in the FARC peace deal. The program, which doles out food subsidies and technical assistance to participating campesinos, could expand to include as many as 100,000 additional families, according to the presidential task force.
Once it鈥檚 persuaded them leave the relatively lucrative crop behind, however, the government has to ensure the necessary conditions for viable alternatives. That means building new infrastructure, improving basic public services like education, and targeting the root causes of rural poverty, violence, and political exclusion that preceded Colombia鈥檚 half-century armed conflict with the FARC.
鈥淭he state has totally abandoned its responsibilities in Putumayo,鈥� says Yuri Quintero, a departmental assemblywoman from La Carmelita. 鈥淎nd that negligence is not something that can be overcome in months or even years.鈥�
Looking beyond the harvest
Building infrastructure 鈥� from roads and bridges, to schools and hospitals 鈥� will be key to Colombia鈥檚 success in creating lasting peace, locals say.
鈥淭hese are, for the most part, fertile lands,鈥� says local farmer Jes煤s Antonio Toro de Mart铆nez. 鈥淵ou can grow whatever you want. That鈥檚 not the problem.鈥� The problem is what happens once you鈥檝e harvested, he says.
Behind his stilted wooden ranch house, past the duck coop, bamboo cattle pen, and murky tilapia fish pond, Toro is uprooting the last few coca bushes growing wild amid his plantain and papaya orchard.
He thought he鈥檇 removed the last of the coca in 2002, when he first bought the 2.5-acre farm from a friend. Worn out by his youthful hedonism and weary of Putumayo鈥檚 escalating dirty war 鈥撀爄n which guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, and public officials alike all drew from the drug trade 鈥撀爃e decided that coca 鈥渏ust wasn鈥檛 worth the trouble.鈥�
Ahead of a UN inspection in July, he gladly ripped up the patch of native, chest-high coca bushes that had survived at the back of his property.
Mr. Toro is, in many ways, a model for what coca substitution hopes to accomplish. A trained, if unlicensed, veterinarian who grew up around livestock and subsistence crops on his grandmother鈥檚 farm, he offers affordable medical services to ranchers and started a local agrarian association to encourage legal farming.
But his experience doing things 鈥渢he right way鈥� has left him as skeptical as he is hopeful.
How, he wonders, will farmers process value-added foodstuffs without equipment, technical training, and reliable electricity? How will they keep produce from spoiling in the sweltering Amazonian humidity? While government geographers are busy surveying future infrastructure projects, how are farmers supposed to get shipments to market over muddy jungle trails and unbridged rivers? And what happens, once they get them there, if there is no market to begin with?
鈥淭here鈥檚 not enough money nor demand in this region to sustain a productive economy,鈥� says Toro. 鈥淓specially if, from one day to the next, everybody starts selling limes instead of coca.
鈥淲hat worries me is that, in all those meetings [the government has] held, they鈥檝e never talked about how we鈥檙e going to commercialize our goods,鈥� Toro says. 鈥淲ithout commerce, we don鈥檛 have anything.鈥�
History lesson
One reason for caution is Plan Colombia, the US-backed counternarcotics and counterinsurgency offensive launched in 2000. Government officials made similar promises about coca replacement and social support then, allocating tens of millions of dollars for 鈥渁lternative development鈥� in Putumayo. But residents say the money never reached them, or that early substitution efforts were canceled out by aggressive chemical eradication campaigns that harmed their new crops. And, while coca production had dropped in recent years, , to levels last seen when Plan Colombia was getting off the ground.
鈥淭here is great distrust, on both sides,鈥� says Miguel Ortega, the government鈥檚 representative for substitution programs in Putumayo. 鈥淲e鈥檙e aware that that is a significant challenge that has to be overcome.鈥�
Mr. Ortega insists that officials have learned the lessons of Plan Colombia, pointing to a the new program鈥檚 collaborative, community-led design and transparency.
FARC鈥檚 active participation is also seen as crucial to securing much-needed community buy-in.
鈥淎s a political movement, we are committed to ensuring that communities that have been obligated, due to their material conditions, to resort to criminalized means of survival [now] enjoy all the opportunities they deserve,鈥� says a rebel commander who goes by the alias 鈥淣orbey,鈥� previously in charge of FARC鈥檚 48th Front.
A formidable fighting force, the Putumayo-based 48th Front was one of many units tasked with filling the rebels鈥� coffers with revenue from coca production 鈥渢axes鈥� and semi-processed cocaine paste. Norbey says he has shared extensive intelligence with newly formed government teams assigned to pursuing right-wing criminal gangs aiming to take control of former FARC territories.
Providing 'basic needs'
But the peaceful future of communities like La Carmelita will depend on even more than viable markets and sturdy bridges.
On a recent afternoon, 15-year-old Yeni Alejandra stands in the middle of La Carmelita鈥檚 lone highway, holding a homemade sign. After regularly being dismissed from school two-and-a-half hours early, she鈥檚 protesting alongside a few hundred other students, teachers, and parents, calling for schools to 鈥済ive us more class.鈥�
鈥淢y goals, my dreams, all depend on my studies,鈥� says Yeni.
Putumayo is one of the poorest departments in Colombia, and has just one public institute of higher education, a vocational school. Students, who commute hours on foot, by donkey, and sometimes by speedboat, struggle to make it to the chronically underfunded grade schools.
Last year, activists and community leaders successfully lobbied the departmental and national government to adopt a 10-year development strategy for Putumayo. Like the coca substitution program, the plan includes a series of long-term investments in infrastructure, health care, and education.
But a global drop in oil prices has pushed Bogot谩 toward austerity. And mounting political pressure to reduce coca cultivation means that there鈥檚 more focus on short-term success eradicating coca plants at the expense of long-term investment, according to a recent report from the , a Colombian think tank.
鈥淲e have to acknowledge that coca provided a lot of basic needs that the government didn鈥檛,鈥� says Ms. Quintero, the local assemblywoman.
鈥淚f the government isn鈥檛 willing or ready to fulfill its obligations, then people are going to go back to what they feel is safe.鈥�
