{"id":630,"date":"2021-02-09T09:57:04","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T09:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/coca-cocaine-bolivia-peru\/?p=630"},"modified":"2021-02-18T10:02:14","modified_gmt":"2021-02-18T10:02:14","slug":"cocaine-falling-coffee-prices-force-perus-farmers-to-cultivate-coca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/coca-cocaine-bolivia-peru\/cocaine-falling-coffee-prices-force-perus-farmers-to-cultivate-coca\/","title":{"rendered":"Cocaine: falling coffee prices force Peru’s farmers to cultivate coca"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thomas Grisaffi<\/a>, University of Reading<\/a><\/em> and Linda Farthing<\/a>, University of Reading<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

A slump in world coffee prices has pushed farmers in Peru\u2019s central jungle to rip up their plants and replace them with coca leaf \u2013 the raw material used in cocaine. This countrywide trend<\/a> has driven coca leaf production close to 55,000 hectares<\/a> or up to 500 tons of cocaine annually<\/a> \u2013 enough to satisfy annual demand<\/a> in the United States three times over.<\/p>\n

As drug trafficking routes shrank due to COVID-19 lockdowns, the price of coca leaf plummeted to half its previous levels<\/a>. Although it has slowly recovered, it finished 2020 by 23% lower than<\/a> a year earlier. But even so, coca offers poor farmers more security<\/a> than any other crop as demand is constant.<\/p>\n

Our research<\/a> is a comparative analysis of the coca and cocaine trade in Peru and Bolivia. The aim is to generate productive debates and promote cooperation by linking farmers, policymakers, advocates and scholars in both countries. We have spent months living and working in coca-producing regions, interviewing farmers and talking to them about how they grow and market their crops as well as speaking with agricultural union leaders and local officials.<\/p>\n

Yusbel Almonacid Santos, a farmer from the town of Satipo in Peru\u2019s Central Jungle, reminisced about coffee\u2019s heyday. \u201cPeople were excited about coffee,\u201d he told us. \u201cIt was the golden bean.\u201d Ten years ago, he told us the price of coffee was high, with one kilo selling for up to US$2.70 (\u00a31.97).<\/p>\n

But in 2010 coffee leaf rust<\/a> multiplied throughout the central jungle and destroyed the plantations. The state-run Agrarian Bank stepped in, offering loans to help farmers replant but soon after the price crashed to US$0.60.<\/p>\n

Coffee poverty<\/h2>\n

Farming coffee requires farmers to tend plants on steep mountainsides the year round. Once a year, they contract teams of workers to bring in the harvest that then must be peeled and dried. Every year merchants demand ever higher quality and more coffee that is registered organic, which increase costs for the farmer. \u201cCoffee creates more work than profit,\u201d Almonacid complained .<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the price is only 5 soles (US$1.40 per kilo) \u2013 that\u2019s just enough to pay the people who harvest it, but for the farmer, nothing is left,\u201d local farmers\u2019 union leader Marianne Zavala told us. \u201cHarvesting coffee can actually leave you in debt. Last year a lot of people didn\u2019t even bother to harvest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Group
Peruvian farmers admire a newly planted coca field.<\/span> Thomas Grisaffi<\/span>, Author provided<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Other crops have such a low price that they are not viable. \u201cWe took out loans from the bank to plant a hectare of bananas,\u201d explains Marisol D\u00edaz, a young mother. \u201cWhen they were beautiful and ready, their price had dropped to US$0.40. How do we earn money at that price? Now we are in debt to the bank \u2013 we are worried they will send around the debt collectors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Away from Peru\u2019s main towns, high levels of poverty<\/a> are endemic. Houses are built from rough-cut planks with beaten mud floors and many do not have access to electricity, sanitation or running water. Malnutrition and anaemia is common, especially among children. \u201cLook at what my kids are eating \u2013 just soup, I can\u2019t afford anything better than that,\u201d said coffee grower Alejandro Cortez, pointing to his children\u2019s swollen stomachs.<\/p>\n

Coca leaf has become a lifeline for these farmers. It has significant advantages as a cash crop<\/a>, growing like a weed on steep slopes, in acidic soil and at higher altitudes. Coca reaches maturity after just one year and its three-to-four-month harvest cycle provides families with a regular income.<\/p>\n

\"Peruvian
A woman sells coca for traditional chewing in the VRAEM, Peru.<\/span><\/span> Thomas Grisaffi<\/span>, Author provided<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s also lightweight \u2013 important because many farmers must carry their products to market on their back. But, most critically, there is always a market<\/a>. Coca in 25kg sacks fluctuates between US$30 to US$70, while coffee averages US$37 and has only one harvest a year. \u201cWhen coffee rust killed our plants, people with a little coca survived. The rest had to abandon their land,\u201d said Zavala. \u201cCoca was like a small savings account.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than just a crop<\/h2>\n

Coca has a rich social, cultural and medicinal significance in Indigenous Andean cultures<\/a> \u2013 dating back to pre-Colombian times. But since the 1970s coca has been largely grown for cocaine. Of 117,292 tons of dried coca leaf produced in Peru in 2017, 106,401 tons were estimated to be destined for drug trafficking<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite its illegality, farmers have few moral qualms about planting coca. Zavala said: \u201cWe are not committing a sin if we plant coca \u2013 anyone who buys cocaine, they are the guilty ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Peruvian state, backed and funded by the US<\/a>, has responded to the recent coca expansion with violence<\/a> \u2013 in April 2019 two coca growers were killed<\/a> by government forces in San Gaban, a rural district about 1500kms south-east of the capital Lima.<\/p>\n

And many others have been injured<\/a> while defending their plantations. In the face of poverty, eradication has alienated farmers<\/a> and displaced coca<\/a> to new regions, including Ucayali, which in turn has put pressure on indigenous communities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the small town of Paratushiali, in Peru\u2019s central jungle, locals use words such as \u201cabandoned\u201d, \u201cneglected\u201d and \u201cforgotten\u201d to describe their region. Roads are impassable during the rainy season, public health and education infrastructure is sparse \u2013 but more than anything farmers complained about the lack of assistance from the state to market their products. \u201cThere is no concern for small farmers \u2013 the state is more interested in repressing coca,\u201d Rueben Leiva, a coffee turned coca grower in his mid-30s, told us.<\/p>\n

Cash crop: Peruvian farmers looking over a field of coca seedlings. Thomas Grisaffi<\/span>, Author provided<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDEVIDA (the state development agency) is supposed to help us replace coca but they spend 80% of their budget on salaries and cars. By the time it gets to us, all we receive is a sack of fertiliser and a machete \u2013 that\u2019s not development,\u201d Almonacid said. \u201cWe don\u2019t trust them, they divide us \u2013 that\u2019s their job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lack of economic opportunities, marginalisation and state neglect all fuel drug crop production and the drug trade. Eradicating drug crops alone is not the answer, the state must support farmers to find realistic economic alternatives to coca.\"The<\/p>\n

Thomas Grisaffi<\/a>, Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Reading<\/a><\/em> and Linda Farthing<\/a>, Visiting Fellow in Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thomas Grisaffi, University of Reading and Linda Farthing, University of Reading A slump in world coffee prices has pushed farmers in Peru\u2019s central jungle to rip up their plants and…Read More ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":266,"featured_media":631,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"__cvm_playback_settings":[],"__cvm_video_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[6],"class_list":["post-630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCocaine: falling coffee prices force Peru's farmers to cultivate coca - Drug Crops and Development in the Andes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/coca-cocaine-bolivia-peru\/cocaine-falling-coffee-prices-force-perus-farmers-to-cultivate-coca\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cocaine: falling coffee prices force Peru's farmers to cultivate coca - 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