The UN Office on Drugs and Crime released its 2006 Andean coca survey estimates yesterday. Consider these charts, using data from the UNODC report, of the five Colombian departments that the U.S.-supported aerial herbicide fumigation program sprayed most heavily in 2006. They vividly illustrate a phenomenon known as the “balloon effect.”
Nariño became a major coca-growing department after Plan Colombia increased eradication in neighboring Putumayo. While large-scale spraying has since slowed coca-growing’s increase, it has not been able to roll it back.
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In Putumayo, Plan Colombia reduced coca-growing dramatically. Once the spraying let up a little bit, coca cultivation began to creep up again. Putumayo had the country’s largest increase in coca cultivation last year.
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In Meta, a sharp increase in spraying brought a decrease in coca cultivation.
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In Antioquia, as in Nari̱o, greatly increased spraying has slowed the growth of Рbut not reversed Рcoca cultivation.
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Fumigation began in Guaviare in the mid-1990s. When the spray planes focused elsewhere in 2000-2002, coca increased. In response, spraying increased in 2003-2004. Spraying is down again, and coca is creeping back up again.
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Overall, the UNODC found a 2 percent decline in coca-growing in the Andes, though Colombia was the only one of the world’s three main coca-producing countries to register a decrease. (The other two, Peru and Bolivia, went up slightly.)
Every year, the UN estimate of Colombian coca cultivation deviates more widely from the U.S. government’s estimate. As we noted earlier this month, the U.S. figure for 2006 (157,200 hectares) is now more than double the UN estimate (78,000 hectares). Nobody has any real idea how much coca is being grown in Colombia and the rest of South America. But after twenty-five years of official coca cultivation estimates, we can say with certainty that the war on drugs has had very little impact on coca supplies.
Looking at coca-growing trends in different parts of Colombia reveals something very important about the U.S. and Colombian governments’ current strategy. This strategy relies heavily on aerial herbicide fumigation and places a lower priority on improving conditions in rural areas. The data in the charts above show us something that should be common sense.
- If you massively fumigate an area, coca-growing will go down – or at least stop increasing – in that area.
- Because Colombia is a huge country with vast impoverished, ungoverned spaces, coca-growing will likely increase in areas where you are not currently spraying.
- When you take your spray-plane fleet to these new areas, while leaving no economic improvements behind in the first area, coca-growing will increase in that first area. People who live there will still face the same incentives to grow coca that they faced before.
This is nothing less than a three-step recipe for failure.
June 15th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Granted that increased government presence and alternative development support are key components of sustained illegal crop reduction. Colombian coca grower-processors must have confidence in some foundation of support/law enforcement from legitimate Colombian institutions in order to buy into the “work more to earn less†leap of faith into the legal world.
However, your analysis above only works under the operating assumption that the crop estimates are credible and are reliable indicators of counter-drug progress (or lack thereof). The UN estimates that the department of Nariño had 15,606 hectares of coca in 2006, yet certifies that the Colombians manually eradicated 7,005 hectares in 2006 (45 percent of that number). Do you imagine that they in fact pulled out nearly half of the coca being grown in the department? That assumption must be made even before the subtraction of some percentage of all the hectares of coca sprayed from the air in separate operations. Do those numbers reflect real life?
Furthermore, what prescription would you offer to reduce the coca being cultivated in the municipio of Cumaribo, Vichada department, which the UN labels the second most important coca cultivation area in Colombia: home to 7 percent of all coca grown in Colombia last year, according to the survey?
Cumaribo is known as “the largest municipio on the planet,†with a land area that is thirteen times the size of the state of Delaware (not a typo). Relook Vichada on the map and remember that Cumaribo is not connected by any serviceable roadway to the rest of Colombia, or the rest of the outside world.
Is that where you would suggest that the global community create a new development pole and focus millions of dollars of alternative development resources to assist a population that has moved there to grow coca and turn it into cocaine (85 percent of Vichada coca producers openly told UN researchers that they themselves manufacture the leaf into coca base)? Under such Pachamama-bestowed conditions of geography and soil resources, what competitive advantage could Cumaribo, Vichada hope to offer the world through legal livelihoods?
June 16th, 2007 at 2:47 am
Vichada, like most regions of Colombia, does indeed have comparative advantages, such as its proximity to the Orinoco River (an export route to Europe).
But I’d say it doesn’t matter either way since neither the Colombian nor US government has the funds necessary to exploit those advantages, certainly not in the face of the billions generated by coca.
The US and Colombian governments stay the course of establishing mechanisms that will consistently draw power inward from rural/marginal areas (as the Governor of Narno argued in a recent post with respect to the FTA), making the central control of the country stronger and stronger. It is a patently absurd course which is doomed to failure, but they’ll hang on to it for as long as they can since it’s the only thing they’ve got.
June 16th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
I think one thing can be drawn from both the US and UN numbers, and it seems to be implied here, but not directly stated. What both sets of numbers show is that in order to maintain stated levels of coca (whether it increased or decreased), more and more fumigation and manual eradication is required. Essentially, whether you take the US or UN numbers, we see that fumigation/manual eradication is becoming less and less effective. It only takes some simple math to show this.
Let’s start with 2003.
I’ll start by saying that what I’ll call the “ratio of efficacy” is the effect of a one percent increase in coca eradication efforts on coca growth. Thus, all ratios are in percentages (%), but the symbol will not be written. A negative right side of the ratio (1 : -5, for example) means a drop in coca growth, i.e. the hoped-for result. The higher the number in the positive, the less effective eradication efforts has been. A lower number in negatives (or a higher number but with a – before it) shows that eradication efforts have been more effective. Feel free, also, to double check my math. Also, it is incredibly important to point out that the 2003 number is deceiving because 1% increase in eradication is the base number and shows no true pattern. I chose it as a random year not realizing this, but I’ll include the numbers anyways.
In 2003, coca dropped 21% (US) or 16% (UN). In order to achieve this drop, 131,756 hectares were eradicated, a 1% increase from 2002. Thus, 1% increase in eradication saw a 21% or 16% decrease in coca, thus the ratio of efficacy is 1 : -21 or 1 : -16, depending on source.
In 2004, the US registered a .13% increase in coca growth and the UN a 7% drop. In order to acheive those results, eradication efforts jumped 12%. Thus, our ratios of efficacy to growth are 1 : .01 (US) and 1 : -.58 (UN).
2005 saw a 15.3% increase in coca efforts, and a 26% (US) or 8% (UN)increase in coca. Thus, our ratio of efficacy is 1 : 1.67 (US) or 1 : .52 (UN)
2006 was not unlike other years, as we’ve seen. There was a 25.7% increase in eradication efforts. According to the US there was a 8% increase in coca, and a 9% drop for the UN. The ratio of efficacy is then 1 : .31 (US) and 1: -.35 (UN).
Thus, to put it in easier form, our US ratios are “1:” to the following, starting in 2003: -21, .01, 1.67 and .31. Thus, eradication as it carried out now is, at varying degrees, ineffective because despite the increases in eradication, coca continues to increase, and a 1% increase in eradication efforts continues to show a even higher percent increase in coca. These are according to the US numbers, again.
According to the UN numbers, our ratios of efficacy “1:” are as follows, again, starting in 2003: -16, -.58, .52, and -.35. These numbers again prove what I am arguing. The fumigations/manual eradication strategy is becoming less and less effective. Any time that an actual decrease is registered, it is a smaller and smaller decrease compared to the increase in eradication. Any increase, as seen in 2005, is completely ineffective.
It’s much easier to see on a graph but the numbers needed to be crunched to prove it. Eradication, by any measurement, is becoming less and less effective. This also corraborates information taken from on the ground in Colombia which has shown that campesinos have developed numerous strategies to decrease the effects of the spray, and also developed techiniques to avoid spray. Also, with manual eradication, it show that it has been ineffective as farmers have replanted new coca or the same coca (I’ve seen the same coca, ripped up then only minutes, maybe hours later, attempted to be replanted, though I wasn’t around a few weeks later to see if it worked). Overall, I would hope someone in the White House has crunched the numbers in a similar manner. But I hope they don’t think a stronger spray is needed.
June 17th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
I realize in order to prove my point, I also need to address attempted growth. If attempted growth increases are larger than the increased eradication, we do not see an ineffective eradication strategy as I have called it. There are two scenarios.
The first is that eradication increases are larger than the new attempted coca, then the strategy used is still ineffective as I have labeled it.
The second is that the newly attempted to be grown coca increase is larger than the increase in eradication, the eradication efforts are not ineffective as I previously labeled them. The strategy is ineffective in a different manner. It simply cannot keep up with coca growers. In this manner, we will see increases in coca growth as well, as coca growers can out-pace the fumigations and manual eradication. Either conclusion here is rough for the status quo.
Lastly, we do a vast increase in attempted coca growth in the last 10 years, almost 500%. What this tells us is that more and more people and land are devoted to coca growth. Thus, rural coca farmers do not have the support financially, institutionally and infrstructurally that they need to use legitimate crops. Also, fumigation of coca crops began in 1996, yet despite increased spraying every single year, people are still willing to risk growing coca to make ends meet. We see this more and more recently as despite record eradication. The strategy in the last 10 years, clearly, has not had the effects that would merit its continuation.
June 17th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
That looks great, if you were doing a study based on the yearly change in kilowatt output from Colombian power plants or the number of its university graduates. Unfortunately, any mathmatecal deductions based on illicit crop estimates are fatally flawed because the survey area doubles every two years. What confidence can you have in the baseline, or in the time series delta? I like your analysis, but you don’t have the tools. No offense, but this amounts to garbage in, garbage out.
June 17th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
That is true, but these are the numbers we have, and the numbers we use. I think it is clear no one has much idea exactly how much coca is being grown, but when analyzing policy, people use these numbers, so we go with what we got. Thus, according to your argument, all of this data is useless, and we shoulddo whatever the hell we want, because, the numbers are pointless and show nothing. So why the hell even do the studies? We need a point to start at, and with the numbers we got, this is what we find. US policy anaylists (in and out of the government) all use these numbers, so they do have merit. Those who use UN numbers also must analyze with what they have. Otherwise any data on coca growth is a big waste of time.
I can’t really say the confidence I have except 90% for the US numbers, because that’s their confidence level. The UN’s numbers are less reliable (I’m guessing), because of their low levels of coverage. The US we don’t really know. But these are the numbers we got, so In order to analyze, we have to use these numbers. I would go with the US’s numbers as more reliable, after reviewing the UN methodology.
June 17th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Actually the UN methodology is not too bad, but they list no confidence level, so that is probably better reasoning to go with the US. They at least give us a confidence level.
June 17th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
They don’t have 90% confidence that the number is 157,200, but rather 90% confidence that the true number lies within a band some 30,000 hectares on either side of that number. 60,000 hectares of wiggle room is, of course, larger than the entire estimate for coca cultivation in Peru or Bolivia, the world’s #2 and # 3 coca producers.
March 26th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
[...] moves somewhere else in the balloon, but does not leave the balloon at all. This effect has been observed within Colombia and between Colombia, Ecuador, and [...]