Food rise has Bolivia's coca farmers planting rice
- added July 20, 2008
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- mundosanto
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Soaring food prices may achieve what the United States has spent millions of dollars trying to do: persuade Bolivian farmers to sow their fields with less potent crops than cocaine's raw ingredient.
The unlikely advocate for change is Bolivian President Evo Morales, who as leader of a powerful coca growers union fought U.S. crop-substitution programs for two decades.
But rising grain prices and food shortages have made him reconsider. He's now asking coca farmers to supplement their crops with rice and corn as a way of holding down coca production while helping to feed South America's poorest country.
U.S. programs have often banned the planting of coca — a small green leaf sacred to Andean peoples and the base ingredient of cocaine — as a condition for farmers to receive aid to try new crops.
In his own twist on alternative development, Morales is willing to split the difference: Growers can maintain up to one "cato" of coca, or about a third of an acre, which earns them about $100 a month while they receive a loan to plant other products as well.
The unlikely advocate for change is Bolivian President Evo Morales, who as leader of a powerful coca growers union fought U.S. crop-substitution programs for two decades.
But rising grain prices and food shortages have made him reconsider. He's now asking coca farmers to supplement their crops with rice and corn as a way of holding down coca production while helping to feed South America's poorest country.
U.S. programs have often banned the planting of coca — a small green leaf sacred to Andean peoples and the base ingredient of cocaine — as a condition for farmers to receive aid to try new crops.
In his own twist on alternative development, Morales is willing to split the difference: Growers can maintain up to one "cato" of coca, or about a third of an acre, which earns them about $100 a month while they receive a loan to plant other products as well.
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- mundosanto
- 2 months ago
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