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Colombians uproot coca to pursue coffee profits

Coca may be highly profitable, but a group of Colombian growers have taken the bold step of uprooting the illegal crop used to make cocaine and replacing it with coffee for export to Britain and France.

"They talk of us like we're mad, but we will keep it up," said Luz Dari Menezes, an agricultural technician with the Cosurca (southern Cauca) cooperative responsible for the development.

In a country like Colombia, which is still the world's biggest cocaine producer at 700 tonnes a year despite US-backed efforts to eradicate the drug, the project's pioneers have built their own success with coffee.

"Far from being the end, the story is only just beginning for new international economic scenarios for fair trade," said Rene Ausecha, engineer and manager of Cosurca.

The 1,200 families belonging to Cosurca, south of Popayan in far southwestern Colombia, near the Equator, since 1999 have ripped out "more than 200 hectares of coca [the raw ingredient for cocaine], replacing it with Arabica" coffee, he said.

During a ceremony at the Chico museum in Bogota, the cooperative owners announced the launch of permanent coffee sales in Europe through their own export service, Expocosurca, with aid from the International Narcotics Control Board, which since 1994 have reaped US$2 million.

Such winds of change in Colombia, where drug lords produce five percent -- some US$4 billion -- of the nation's gross domestic product, is greeted with great reluctance.

"We are faced with permanent social tension," said Dari Menezes.

Her colleague Adriana Ledesma agrees: "We are constantly having to try and convince our compatriots in Cauca" province, where Popayan is the main town.

Before the experiment was launched by Cosurca "people were certainly richer, bought cars, motorbikes and weapons ... We tried to make them see that it's not just money that's important," the women say.
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