UN SURVEY: PERU COCA CULTIVATION INCREASED 1.1% IN 2002

LIMA (AP)--Cultivation of coca plants rose by 1.1% in Peru last year,
according to a joint U.N.-Peruvian government report, and Peru's anti-drug
czar called the increase "alarming."

The survey, conducted by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime and Peru's
government, said 115,400 acres of the coca - used to produce cocaine - were
being grown by Peruvian growers at the end of 2002.

That was up from 114,160 acres in 2001.

"It is an alarming statistic," Nils Ericsson, the head of Peru's anti-drug
agency Devida, said Thursday. "Peru maintains a worrisome second-place
ranking among cocaine and coca producers worldwide."

Colombia leads the world in coca cultivation, with an estimated 250,000
acres last year.

Peru was once the world's leading coca producer, but low coca prices,
interdiction, eradication and alternative crop programs drastically cut
cultivation from a peak of 285,000 acres in 1995.

Although Peru destroyed 17,800 acres of coca last year, 2002 marked the
first time that new cultivation outpaced eradication since 1995.

In recent years, coca leaf prices have risen with growing demand for
Peruvian coca amid increased destruction of the crop in neighboring
Colombia.

Peruvian agents have destroyed about 3,500 acres so far this year, Ericsson
said. He didn't have an estimate of how much cultivation has increased.

The U.S. - which has pledged some $140 million to Peru for anti-drug efforts
this year - has set a goal of destroying 19,800 acres of coca this year, a
goal Ericsson said Peru will easily meet.

In February, the U.S. State Department estimated coca production in Peru had
increased by 7.6% to 90,400 acres in 2002 compared with 84,000 acres in
2001.

U.S. and U.N estimates often conflict.

After years of hailing Peru as a success story in its war on drugs, the U.S.
government criticized the nation in February for dropping its police
presence in some coca-growing areas and slowing eradication programs.

President Alejandro Toledo has faced mounting pressure from impoverished
coca farmers who want an end to restrictions on a profitable illegal crop.

Last month, thousands of coca farmers marched on Lima. After meeting with
their leaders, Toledo decreed that the government would work with coca
farmers to gradually reduce their illegal crop.

Shortly after the decree was published, however, some of the farmers'
leaders threatened new protests, accusing the government of deceiving them.

Coca leaves - which are processed and refined to create cocaine - also play
a traditional role among Andean highlands Indians, who chew them to stave
off hunger and fatigue.

Peru permits the legal cultivation of 30,000 acres of coca shrubs for
traditional uses.