COLOMBIA COCA HEARTLAND UNSUITED FOR MOST CROPS, U.S. STUDY FINDS

BOGOTA -- A U.S.-backed program to help poor farmers abandon drug
crops is in disarray because Colombia's cocaine heartland isn't
suitable for most other crops, according to a new study.

The confidential study, paid for by the U.S. Agency for International
Development, throws into doubt efforts by the Colombian government to
help peasants switch from growing coca, the main ingredient of
cocaine , to legal crops.

The study found that in Putumayo state, the heart of Colombia's coca
region, only a small percentage of the farmers who have signed
agreements with the Colombian government to abandon coca have
actually done so, according to a U.S. Embassy official.

The Colombian government promised to pay the 38,000 peasants who
signed the pacts as much as $1,000 each in order to help them start
growing some other crop. But as of early April, only 9,500 had been
paid, according Colombian government figures.

The campesinos of Putumayo had long told visiting journalists that
they doubted the government would come through with its end of the
bargain, and had said they would uproot their coca bushes only when
the alternative development aid began arriving.

The new study, which was first reported by the Los Angeles Times, has
led the U.S. government to decide not to fund any more of the pacts,
or pay for most crop substitution projects. Instead, the $52 million
in aid has been switched to infrastructure projects and social
spending to reward communities that eradicate their coca crops, the
official said.

The problem in Putumayo state, an isolated jungle region on the edge
of the Amazon basin, is that few crops other than the hardy coca bush
thrive in the thin soil, meaning that commercial-level farming of
food crops is impractical, the report said.

The study concluded that tree crops could work in Putumayo and USAID
is contributing to projects like the development of a hearts of palm
industry. The tree projects take time to yield results and don't
solve the problem of how farmers who abandon coca will immediately
earn a living.

Colombian officials defended their crop-substitution efforts.

Gonzalo de Francisco, the Colombian official in charge of the
project, said he understood that few crops could be grown in the
region on a large scale to be competitive commercially with food
crops from Colombia's more fertile regions, but insisted that
Putumayo's farmers must be given some way to survive if they give up
growing coca.

"We don't agree with the idea that Putumayo is not viable," he told a
press conference Tuesday. "There are 200,000 people living there. We
have to respect them."

Mr. De Francisco pointed out that more than 1,000 hectares [2,470
acres] of coca have been voluntarily eliminated in Putumayo. Overall,
the project is making progress, he insisted, adding that Colombian
government will go forward with the program, even without U.S.
support.

The U.S. government has pledged more than $1 billion to Plan
Colombia, President Andres Pastrana's program to dramatically reduce
Colombia's drug output. Most of that money is for military equipment
and training so the Colombian government can fumigate vast areas of
the country where coca and heroin poppies are grown. But the part of
the U.S. assistance package aimed at alternative development programs
to help farmers switch to legal crops will now be spent to build new
roads to connect the region to the rest of the country, and on social
projects like schools and clinics in communities that pull up their
coca crops, U.S. Embassy officials said.