HomeNewsBriefPeru's Coca Substitution Program Stalls Before It Starts
BRIEF

Peru's Coca Substitution Program Stalls Before It Starts

COCA / 3 MAR 2015 BY DAVID GAGNE EN

Peru has yet to implement a crop substitution program that was slated to begin last year in the country's most prolific coca-growing region known as the VRAEM, a reminder of the challenges facing both traditional and alternative strategies to reducing coca production.

Despite a government initiative to convert 5,000 hectares of coca crops into coffee beans, cacao, and pineapple in 2014, Peru failed to convert a single coca leaf into alternative plants last year in the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro River Valleys (VRAEM) region, reported El Comercio. The VRAEM is Peru's most productive coca-growing region: an estimated 200 tons of cocaine leave the tri-river valley every year, an astonishingly high number that represents between a fourth and a fifth of total estimated cocaine production worldwide.

Peru's Minister of Agriculture Juan Manuel Benites told El Comercio the reasons behind the delay were two-fold. For one, the coca leaf remains a lucrative cash crop compared to other crops. Secondly, some groups are intimidating farmers into not substituting coca for alternative crops.

Benites said the government initiative in the VRAEM is set to begin in March, and the stated goal is to substitute 2,000 hectares of coca within three months.

InSight Crime Analysis

Given the government's rate of success thus far in the VRAEM, Benites' goal seems ambitious, if not impossible. Alternative crops take a lot of money, security and local political will, all of which currently seem in very short supply in the VRAEM.

But the failure of Peru's crop substitution program in the VRAEM last year also illustrates the difficulties of implementing any approach to coca reduction. As noted by Benites, there are economic and security reasons to stay away from alternative crops. However, the more traditional government approach of forced coca eradication has not yielded much better results in the VRAEM.

SEE ALSO: Coverage of Coca

In June of last year, the Peruvian government abandoned its eradication program in the region in part due to the security threat posed by insurgency group the Shining Path. The government abruptly switched its goal of forcibly eradicating 15,000 hectares of coca in the VRAEM in 2014, to the voluntary replacement of just 5,000 hectares via the current crop substitution program. 

The inability to successfully reduce coca production in the VRAEM is an ongoing problem in Peru. Peru destroyed over 30,000 hectares of coca throughout the country last year, and hopes to eradicate 35,000 hectares in 2015. However, the lack of an integrated government strategy to curtail coca growing, most notably in the VRAEM, is a principal reason Peru has become the world's top producer of cocaine

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Tags

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

COCA / 11 JUL 2022

Following multiple killings, Indigenous leaders in the Peruvian Amazon are again facing threats of violence after coca eradication operations in…

COCA / 1 MAR 2023

Social leaders in Putumayo, Colombia, hope coca crop substitution can bring opportunities to communities. But supporting it may mean death.

BRAZIL / 8 AUG 2023

In the Amazon’s tri-border areas, illegal logging is expanding, due to the low cost of land, and few controls on…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…