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Colombia says it's convincing drug farmers to grow other crops — but drug traffickers say otherwise

Colombia's crop-substitution program aimed at reducing the country's coca output is being challenged in some regions by criminal groups and dissident rebels.

President Donald Trump and Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos speak during a joint news conference at the White House in Washington, May 18, 2017.

The meeting between Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and President Donald Trump on Thursday focused heavily on the drug trade, something both leaders have targeted during their time in office.

Colombia — the world's biggest producer of coca, the base ingredient of cocaine — has struggled to crack down on drugs, and the recent peace deal with the left-wing FARC rebels has been viewed as an opportunity to remove a major producer and trafficking group from action.

As a part of that deal, Santos' government and the FARC have agreed to implement a crop-substitution program, giving the poor Colombians who rely on coca crops for their livelihoods an alternative to the drug business.

When asked about Trump's emphasis on a border wall to halt the flow of drugs into the US, Santos outlined his government's anti-drug efforts.

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"We are doing a very big effort, because of the peace process, to have a new strategy: carrot and stick."

"Stick, by forced eradication: We have already eradicated this year only 15,000 hectares, which is the whole volume that we eradicated last year, and we’re starting ... to substitute voluntarily through a program where the peasants — and we have 80,000 families already in the program — that they are going to substitute for legal crops, and this is the first time that this could be done, because of the peace."

"Before, the conflict did not allow us to build roads and to give these peasants an alternative."

A crop-substitution program has been in the works for some time. A pilot version of the program started in northwest Antioquia — one of Colombia's main coca-producing departments — in summer 2016.

Farmers responsible for nearly 34% of the coca produced in Colombia have signed on to the plan, which would see them replace more than 63,000 hectares of coca with legitimate crops.

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In that part of Antioquia, officials were optimistic about the effort, especially because alternative crops like coffee would be viable there. But such alternative crops are not an option everywhere in Colombia, and even in places where they are, logistical issues — like having proper roads to get crops to market before they spoil — and commercial challenges have made farmers resistant to substitution programs.

of coca earlier this year Many growers are wary of the government, skeptical that it will follow through on the eal. Some have even violently blocked government coca-eradication teams from reaching fields.

Adding to that resistance are criminal groups — including dissident FARC groups — who have moved into the areas the FARC has vacated and, in some places, threatened farmers who would otherwise stop growing coca.

This month in the town of La Uribe in central department of Meta (formerly a FARC stronghold), Santos formally eradicated the first of the coca plants to be destroyed under the deal. But a group thought to be dissident FARC rebels made its objections to the plan known, distributing a pamphlet stating its intention "to desist from the so-called peace process and continue fighting."

Several days later, a UN Office on Drugs and Crime worker was kidnapped in the department south of Meta, allegedly by the same group.

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A few days after Santos' visit to La Uribe, the country's post-conflict minister appeared in a town in Putumayo department, a major coca producing area on Colombia's southern border, to speak about development projects.

The next morning, local coca growers found pamphlets outside their homes cautioning them against accepting the substitution program.

"We will be active along the entire border region where ever there are guerrilla community leaders, no matter where they are," read the pamphlets, left by an unidentified group, according to Colombia Reports. "We will be there where ever necessary. Better think about it."

Criminal groups are not the only ones trying to slow or reverse the move away from coca.

Recordings leaked a few weeks ago allegedly caught members of the military stationed near La Uribe trying to bribe FARC rebels to abandon the peace process and, in effect, the crop-substitution plan.

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The threats these groups have made are not idle ones.

Since the peace deal went into effect at the beginning of December, two community leaders in the Putumayo region have been assassinated.

In

The sharp uptick in violence targeting social and community leaders and other activists has prompted international alarm.

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