FUNGAL HERBICIDE WEIGHED AS TOOL TO KILL COCA IN COLOMBIA

Ecologists say the herbicide is virtually a biological weapon - one
that might upset Colombia's ecology or endanger farmers, animals and
food crops.

Under pressure from the United States, Colombia has reluctantly agreed
to take the first step toward developing a powerful biological
herbicide against the coca and heroin-poppy fields that are spreading
almost unchecked across its countryside, Colombian and U.S. officials
said Wednesday.

For years, U.S. officials have been quietly debating ways to conduct
field tests of such an herbicide, developed from a fungus that occurs
naturally in many types of coca and other plants.

Now, Colombian officials say they are completing a proposal to the
United Nations that would include testing for the presence of the
fungus, Fusarium oxysporum, in coca, the raw material of cocaine.

If the fungus is found in Colombian varieties of coca, Colombian
scientists would go on to evaluate its effectiveness, safety and
environmental impact as an herbicide.

``What we want is a program of research - and only research - on the
use of biological controls against these crops,'' the Colombian
environment minister, Juan Mayr, said in an interview Wednesday.

The Colombian government's uneasy support for the project comes as
President Clinton is about to sign a bill providing $1.3 billion in
aid to Colombia to fight drug traffickers and the insurgents who
protect their trade.

Some powerful Republicans in Congress told Colombian officials that
they were supporting the spending on the expectation that Colombia
would agree to explore the use of Fusarium fungus in its coca fields.

Within the Clinton administration, officials said, the testing of
fungal herbicides was also pushed by the White House drug policy
adviser, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, and by officials of the U.S.
Southern Command, which is overseeing the U.S. overhaul of Colombia's
armed forces.

Environmentalists and other activists in both countries are raising a
din of objections to any field tests of the fungus, arguing that it is
virtually a biological weapon - one that might upset Colombia's
ecology or endanger farmers, animals and food crops.

Last year, similar complaints by environmentalists in Florida prompted
state officials to put aside plans to test a variant of Fusarium for
possible use against marijuana fields.

Several plant pathologists who have studied the fungus extensively
said there was relatively little scientific basis for the assertions
about its danger. They acknowledged that a great deal of testing still
needed to be done, but they added that the most significant unanswered
questions might have less to do with the safety of the fungus than
with its effectiveness and cost.

``If they're looking at local strains of the fungus, then I can't see
something scientifically dangerous about it,'' said Jonathan Gressel,
a professor of plant sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science in
Rehovot, Israel. ``What you're doing is taking a disease that is
already present and putting on more of it.''

``But they'll be lucky if it works,'' Gressel added. ``Because
typically this inundative strategy isn't good enough in commercial
agriculture, and I'm sure the narcos have been planning ahead. They'll
probably go to fungicides or breed their coca to be resistant to the
fungus. It's relatively easy to do.''

The concerns about Fusarium's proposed use as a mycoherbicide, or
fungal herbicide, have been heightened by the shadowy history of
research into its impact on drug crops. Indeed, the proposed Colombian
study comes after years of often secret investigation by scientists in
the United States and the former Soviet Union.

Officials said Fusarium, a naturally occurring fungus with variants
that can cause wilt in everything from tomatoes and grain to
marijuana, was first identified as a possible weapon in the drug fight
by CIA scientists in the early 1980s. The U.S. Agriculture Department
began more extensive research into the use of the fungus on coca in
1988, and it continued, mostly in secret, for nearly a decade.