Press Release |
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| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: | September 10, 2008 |
| CONTACT: ONDCP PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICE (202) 395-6618 |
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OFFICIAL U.S. COLOMBIA SURVEY REVEALS SHARP DECLINE IN COCAINE PRODUCTION
COLOMBIA COCA CROP “HOLLOWED-OUT” BY ERADICATION PRESSURE
(Washington, D.C.)—The 2007 coca crop estimate for Colombia is now complete, and reveals for the first time the results of scientific studies showing how eradication pressure is withering the productivity of existing coca fields. New productivity data show that in 2007 Colombia's maximum potential production dropped to 535 metric tons of pure cocaine.
Based on our new understanding of the impact of eradication, we can now calculate that Colombia's maximum potential production of pure cocaine has fallen fully 24 percent since its high point in 2001 (from 700 metric tons to 535 metric tons).
The estimate is produced by a scientific sampling of coca fields taken by aerial imagery to represent the known growing areas in Colombia. The actual survey area changes from year to year and cannot be directly compared. The new estimate shows approximately 157,200 hectares under cultivation in 2006, compared to an estimated 167,000 in 2007. (Because of the range of the confidence interval found in any survey estimate, the change in cultivation between 2006 and 2007 is not statistically significant, as figures from both years fall within the margins of sampling error.)
The central finding is that while the estimated area under cultivation has remained relatively static, cocaine productivity from Colombian fields—the critical variable—is steeply dropping, due to aerial spray and manual eradication.
The recently-conducted productivity studies in Colombia now reveal the true damage of eradication to the cocaine market, and the effect can be back-cast to previous years. The apparent year-to-year similarity of the area under cultivation has hidden the actual cost imposed. According to the new data, Colombian production potential was 155 fewer metric tons than we would have estimated over the course of the past two years (2006 and 2007) because of the success of aerial and manual eradication pressure. Further, as we have noted, the result has been a remarkable 24 percent reduction in potential production since 2001.
As previously noted, eradication pressure conducted under Plan Colombia (a combination of aerial spray and manual uprooting of coca bushes that totaled 218,000 hectares in 2007) resulted in efforts to circumvent the damage by adapting measures such as pruning, re-planting, or migrating to adjacent fields. These efforts diminished the productive ability of coca growers by reducing their number of harvests per year or requiring newly-planted fields stocked with immature (therefore, less productive) coca plants.
There is now evidence of an additional dynamic.
New data show that coca growers' circumventions are insufficient – the fields they now cultivate, if sprayed, become progressively less able to produce coca leaf in the quantities necessary to sustain expected cocaine production. With lower leaf yield per field, the amount of pure cocaine generated per hectare is also falling. That is, the value of each affected coca-growing hectare is diminishing each year.
The fields are being, in effect, hollowed out from within, showing that farmers are losing ground against eradication pressure in the measure that matters most – potential cocaine production, resulting in a steadily deteriorating cocaine market.
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