UN: Fall in the price of coca contributes to food insecurity in Colombia

The collapse of the price of Coca leafthe main input of the cocaineis contributing to food insecurity in Colombia and causing displacement, as people leave areas that depend on illicit cultivation, revealed an internal presentation of United Nations known to Reuters.

Historically, coca cultivation has provided better incomes than legal alternatives for thousands of rural Colombian families, where drug gangs normally paid for transportation, fertilizer and other supplies.

Now the coca leaf-growing peasants have no buyers for that product or for the coca base, which leads them to poverty, according to an internal presentation of the World Food Program (WFP) of the United Nations.

“There is no cash to buy food and the inflation of these increases”said the presentation, dated June and whose authenticity was confirmed by the WFP.

Oversupply of coca, including more productive plants and record harvests, is contributing to falling prices, along with slow growth in trafficking routes and new coca crops in Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, according to the filing. .

Other reasons for the drop in coca prices are territorial disputes between trafficking groups and imports of the synthetic opioid fentanyl into the United States, one of the main consumers of cocaine, the report said.

Some 400,000 families throughout Colombia depend on income related to coca cultivation, according to the presentation, which stated that coca markets have been paralyzed in departments such as Nariño, Putumayo and Norte de Santander for between three months and a year.

The government will hand out 2 million pesos (about $487) to just over 77,000 families as part of an existing program to replace illicit crops, said Valerin Saurith, advisor to the presidential Zero Hunger initiative.

The official affirmed that the government will work to create viable economic options for the affected communities in the medium term.

“It is not only a substitution of crops but of economy”Saurith said.

International Crisis Group Colombia analyst Elizabeth Dickinson said coca prices are currently around a 30% below their previous levels, and assured that rural areas are suffering a “total economic collapse” as a result of that situation.

A kilo of coca base used to cost about $975 in Nariño, but now it sells for about $240, if buyers are found, Dickinson explained. “This has created not only an economic crisis, but quite frankly a humanitarian crisis”Dickinson said.

Source: Reuters