By Cindy A. Morales Castillo, COLOMBIA +20,
EL ESPECTADOR, April 10, 2025
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
Even with all of the qualifications that the administration has announced, eradication of coca with glyphosate could still signify greater pressure on the communities, or it could move the discussion on the agendas of some of the peace negotiations.
The shadow of another decertification for Colombia and the tense relations with the United States—even with an alleged petition by President Gustavo Petro himself to the United States, suggesting the legalization of cocaine—has once again put forward the debate about the war on drugs in Colombia which in the last few hours has had several forewarnings.
Even though the statement by Minister of Defense Pedro Sánchez on the return–with many conditions—of land-based eradications with glyphosate does indeed mark a change from the policy of the Gustavo Petro administration, which had promised not to use it; it has a number of asterisks for those who, with all the things that are going on, have tried to “soften” the switch. For example, there won’t be forced eradication, but rather “with previous agreement by the communities,” as the Minister himself clarified. There will also be a plan to complement the substitution that is already going on—very slowly—with the communities, and it won’t be on every one of the plantings.
“We’re talking about manual eradication, but also about using glyphosate on plantings that are larger than 1.5 hectares. It’s a strategy that’s parallel to the integrated program that’s part of the strategy of the Minister of Defense and the National Police,” explained the Director of Police, General Carlos Fernando Triana.
There’s one statistic that has to be kept in mind: coca plantings increased from 230,000 hectares in 2022 to 253,000 in 2023, which means an increase of 10%.
For analyst Luis Fernando Trejos, of the University of the North, the proposal to try reaching agreements with the communities makes no sense. “In the plan for substitution, this is the way to go: do the substitutions voluntarily and get some benefits from the government, or refuse to do them, and you get no benefit. This creates a gray zone because you have to ask yourself if that “consensus” will contain a warning within it, if there really are systems for consultation; can the communities vote for what they want, or not? Would the vote be respected?” he wonders.
And he added, “What this shows in every case is that glyphosate is still alive under very special and particular conditions, it’s no longer using the key of aerial aspersion, but manual fumigation instead. But glyphosate still lives and that’s going to put an end to a dogma that this administration had.”
The President said in his X account (formerly Twitter) that the administration’s policy is to pay for voluntary eradication of illegal plantings, and for substitution with agro-industrial products, but that just seems to be a clarification of the complementariness of the substation policy, as we are already aware of a number of processes of contracting for the purchase of glyphosate, supplies, etc. These are on the Secop platform.
X Gustavo Petro
That’s not true. The administration’s policy is to pay for voluntary eradication of illegal plantings and their substitution for agro-industrial products that generate prosperity in the communities.
Caracol Radio 6am
The Petro administration has ordered a return to using glyphosate to eradicate illegal plantings in this country.
Caracol Radio 2:56 pm, April 9, 2025
But beyond the buts, and whether the change is gradual, the decision doesn’t only contradict the promises, but it also has an impact on different populations such as the campesinos and the indigenous people who are present in the territories where the eradication takes place. There is also damage to the environment, and even some damage in some of the negotiations the government is having with the armed groups in the “total peace” effort. Some of the dialog tables have plans for crop substitution as a topic for discussion.
Impacts on health, the environment, and the communities
The use of glyphosate for the eradication of illegal crops has been the object of controversy because of their potential adverse effects. Studies have pointed out that exposure to this herbicide can have negative effects on human health and cause birth defects as well as causing other damage.
Last year the Viso Mutop organization that, among other things, monitors socio-environmental effects and effects of the drug policies on human rights, says that, in spite of that, the general treatment by administrations has been ambivalent.
There are those who contend that glyphosate is entirely harmless to the environment, and they compare it with its focused use on legal agriculture when applied with a sprayer on your back, which is a necessary agricultural input for many crops and innocuous because of the way it’s applied, but in fact, there is evidence of birth defects as a result.
Besides that, significant damage to local ecosystems has been documented, affecting biodiversity and soil and water.
“The return to fumigation with glyphosate not only perpetuates a failed strategy, but it also exposes campesino and indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities to serious harm to their health, contaminating the soil and water sources. That constitutes a form of chemical warfare prohibited by International Humanitarian Law; it’s an indiscriminate and disproportionate activity in territory occupied by the civilian population,” Leonardo Gonzáles of Indepaz stated in his X account (formerly Twitter).
The effect on communities and the tables for dialog
Forced eradication, even when it’s done manually, generally gives rise to conflicts in the countryside. The campesino communities, frequently without viable alternatives to planting coca, are faced with the loss of their only economic sustenance.
Besides that, the strategy doesn’t attack the structural causes of the problem, the absence of any government, lack of infrastructure, formal markets, and the lack of sustainable rural development policies.
Recent history demonstrates that this kind of intervention increases the risk of displacement, poverty, and especially, confrontations with the Armed Forces, some of which, warns Trejos, through exploitation by the armed groups.
“I have no doubt that that announcement, however it may have been made, will provoke greater pressure on the communities by the armed groups, or it will increase the exploitation of the population by using this as the first line of attack against the Armed Forces,” he explains.
And he adds that events like this have been seen recently.
In the past, community-based organizations like COCCAM (National Co-ordination of Coca, Poppy, and Marijuana Growers), have renounced this focus, warning that it undermines the principles of organization and joint responsibility that sustain crop substitution programs.
And another effect could be on the peace negotiation tables. A number of tables, like those that are proceeding with the Command Staff Blocs and the Walter Mendoza Front of the Dissidents, who just a few days ago announced the expansion of a substitution process for 30,000 hectares in Nariño and Putumayo including agendas for voluntary substitution of illegal crops. This was based on the dialogs about alternative development and recognizing the rights of the campesino communities.
A measure like the one announced by the administration, explains Trejos, can bring consequences like promoting the moving of the agriculture boundary, meaning that they would plant the coca in different areas that had been intended for agricultural activity, farming. Or that they turn to other kinds of illegal income.
It could be that spraying glyphosate could diminish drug traffickers’ income, but they would increase it by augmenting their already high rates of extortion or by stealing lumber. The armed groups are always migrating to another economy,” Trejos says.