Why cocaine has become a lifeline for Peru’s coffee farmers
On one hand, planting coffee creates more work than profit. On the other, coca leaf offers unmatched security to debt-ridden cultivators. A woman sells coca for traditional chewing in the VRAEM, Peru. | Thomas Grisaffi, Author provided
A slump in world coffee prices has pushed farmers in Peru’s central jungle to rip up their plants and replace them with coca leaf – the raw material used in cocaine. This countrywide trend has driven coca leaf production close to 55,000 hectares or up to 500 tonnes of cocaine annually – enough to satisfy annual demand in the United States three times over.
A slump in world coffee prices has pushed farmers in Peru’s central jungle to rip up their plants and replace them with coca leaf – the raw material used in cocaine. This countrywide trend has driven coca leaf production close to 55,000 hectares or up to 500 tons of cocaine annually – enough to satisfy annual demand in the United States three times over.
As drug trafficking routes shrank due to COVID-19 lockdowns, the price of coca leaf plummeted to half its previous levels. Although it has slowly recovered, it finished 2020 by 23% lower than a year earlier. But even so, coca offers poor farmers more security than any other crop as demand is constant.