PERU / COCA

Sound up: singing

A Peruvian prayer to mother earth…

SOUNDBITE (Quechua) Vendor, Cusco market:
“pacha tierra mama”

…recited before chewing coca.

Coca cultivation has a long history in this Andean country and a significant place in Peruvian culture. The Incas used coca for religious and medicinal purposes.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Abel, Coca farmer:
“From Inca times until today, coca leaf has been important in history. There are many sacred rituals that are based on coca. That is why we see the coca leaf as something sacred. There are many sacred rituals that are based on coca. That is why we see the coca leaf as something sacred.”

But the coca leaf is also the basis of cocaine and of drug addiction, organized crime and insurgency movements, facts Peruvians know all too well.

Twenty years ago, insurgents used profits from drug trafficking to fuel a vicious civil war. It is estimated that some 70,000 people died.

During that dangerous time, Hector Ore was a coca farmer and a drug trafficker in the infamous region of San Martin.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Hector, former coca farmer and drug trafficker:
“I was working for a company and would produce weekly probably about 1,500 kilos of cocaine base. Sometimes we would fill up four or five flights headed for Colombia and then Europe.”

Since then, the Peruvian government’s eradication measures have cut the coca leaf production in half. With technical and financial assistance from the United Nations many coca farmers have been able to give up their coca fields voluntarily and learn how to grow other crops.

SOUNDBITE (English) Flavio Mirella, UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Peru:
“About 15,000 people have been weaned off an illicit, informal economy, one that’s based on a single crop.”

Flavio Mirella, the Representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Peru.

SOUNDBITE (English) Flavio Mirella, UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Peru:
“And now have moved on to a formal economy; licit crops that can now compete on the national market.”

But for some cocaleros, like Abel Diaz, who lives deep in the Peruvian jungle, moving into licit crops is easier said than done. Growing coca is the only thing Abel knows.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Abel, Coca farmer:
“I remember I was 11 years old. My father had a friend in Huallaga; there I found out about coca leaves and started harvesting during my school vacations.”

And like his father once taught him, Abel is teaching his son how to care for his crops.

NAT SOUND: Abel and Oscar planting little coca plants while talking

Today, Abel owns six hectares or almost 15 acres of land. Most are coca fields. About a third are used for other crops. But they don’t grow well here in the jungle.

His wife Melida says they barely produce enough food for themselves. The only money they earn comes from coca.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Abel, Coca farmer:
“I consider myself and my fellow coca farmers extremely poor.”

Abel’s poverty is evident in his family’s living conditions. Besides having little to eat, there is little to do. There are no books and it is a rare toy that finds its way here.

Why does Abel have such a hard time making a living? He sells about a fifth of his coca crop legally, to ENACO, a government-owned company that buys coca leaves. ENACO converts coca leaves into tea, colas and medicines. But the company pays farmers very little and demands leaves that are higher in quality than those Abel grows.

So most of what he produces – about 120 kilos of coca leaves every three months – he sells illegally to the traditional market for chewing.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Abel, Coca farmer:
“I take it to Aguaytia to sell it; over there they pay a bit more than what the black market pays.” (5.44”)

Abel says selling to the black market is sometimes his only option. He says drug traffickers are not as picky about the quality of the crop. (8.00”)

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Abel, Coca farmer:
“In summer time, the coca leaves dry well and fast, but in winter they do not dry well and that is when we sell them to the black market because these leaves are not good for the traditional market and we need the money.”

And because chewing on coca leaves is known to make one feel less hungry, growing coca seems even harder to give up.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Abel, Coca farmer:
“Sometimes we have little food and chewing coca helps us. Coca leaves give you more energy.”

This is the kind of mentality that the government has to confront when introducing alternative crops. But for some coca growers, the decision to quit the illegal trade was clear.

Hector Ore says he used to make money from the black market as well: bags of it. But his family lived in constant fear of police and government raids on the one hand, and rebel groups on the other. The secretive life of a cocaine producer put his four children in harm’s way.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Hector Ore, former Coca farmer and drug trafficker:
“The army as well as the insurgency would pressure us to pay up. That is why I decided to move and also because my children were young and I did not want them to belong to any rebel group.” (16.41”)

So Hector Ore moved his family to a busy city in the Peruvian Amazon, Pucallpa. This is where he came across a United Nations project helping former ‘cocaleros’. On the uneven terrain, Hector now grows palm trees for oil.

The beginnings were hard. Palm trees take three to four years before the first harvest, so the Ore family was forced to live off the land, sometimes eating high-protein Suri worms when there was nothing else.

Today, 16 years and more than 22 hectares or 54 acres of palm trees later, Hector is a shareholder in this palm oil processing plant here.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Hector Ore, former Coca farmer and drug trafficker:
“To me, being the owner of this factory is a great honor. This is the future of my whole family; my children, my grandchildren and my whole generation.”

Running a legal business has enabled Hector to open his first bank account.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Hector Ore, former Coca farmer and drug trafficker:
“To all farmers involved with coca, I say: change to palm! With palm trees you are always clean and proud. You won’t be afraid of justice chasing you.”

What worked for Hector may not work for Abel. But he hopes that the United Nations will help him, too. This is not the life he wants for his children.

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Abel, Coca farmer:
“I want my children to do well. I want them to study, to be professional…”

According to experts, palm trees probably would not grow here, but cacao might. Crops to substitute coca are largely determined by the soil and the altitude of any given area. The Peruvian government, with the help of the UN, is trying to find alternatives that can be sustained in the long term.

While Abel is struggling to eke out a living on his coca fields, his hope is to turn things around for himself. He is willing to learn how to grow other crops, but his deeply rooted belief in the coca leaf is still strong. (14.90”)

SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Abel, Coca farmer:
“Coca should be one of the crops in a field. God created all plants so men can put them to good use.”