Colombia coca cultivation down slightly, UN report says
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The area planted with coca fell 1.16% in 2018 to 169,000 hectares (418,000 acres) from 171,000 hectares the year before
File photo of 11/26/06 of manual eradicators of coca plants monitored by members of the Colombian police. EFE / Rafa Salafranca.
Reuters | Luis Jaime Acosta
Colombia's cultivation of coca, the base ingredient in cocaine, fell very slightly last year compared with 2017, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said on Friday, and fighting the crop remains a challenge.
The area planted with coca fell 1.16% in 2018 to 169,000 hectares (418,000 acres) from 171,000 hectares the year before, the UNODC said. Potential cocaine output rose 5.8% compared with the previous year to 1,120 metric tonnes annually.
"Colombia is still at the highest levels of coca cultivation since the count began in 2011," said Pierre Lapaque, the UNODC representative in the country.
The UNODC report broadly coincided with a report last month from the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, which said the number of hectares planted with coca fell slightly in 2018 to 208,000, from 209,000, while cocaine production fell to 887 tonnes from 900.
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President Ivan Duque hailed the results as a sign of progress in a joint news conference with Lapaque.
Duque backs the use of aerial fumigation with the herbicide glyphosate to fight coca, but the country's constitutional court has upheld stringent restrictions on the practice.
Colombia is one of the world's top producers of cocaine. Rebel groups, criminal gangs, and former paramilitaries are all involved in production and transport to consumers, largely in North America and Europe.
