Colombia will change its strategy in the fight against illegal drugs by giving land to farmers who grow food crops instead of coca, President Juan Manuel Santos announced as the country stops fumigating coca crops with the herbicide glyphosate. Part of the new anti-drug policy is to provide poor campesinos alternatives to illicit coca crops, the raw material for cocaine, by funding the cultivation of legal crops. Farmers will receive government aid and technical advice in order to undertake other agricultural projects suited to the area’s traditions. The program also includes plans to establish rural cooperative centres, which organise the storage and distribution of farmers’ produce and help them gain access to markets. Those who grow legal crops for more than five years will be granted property titles for the lands they cultivate so that they can become legal landowners. “With this programme we hope to have a twofold result: reducing the illicit cultivation and improving the living conditions of hundreds of thousands of peasants,” Santos said on Tuesday in a speech on national TV. The plan will first be implemented with some 26,000 families that produce coca in the southern provinces of Putumayo and Nariño. “Today begins a new era in the fight against drug trafficking in our country,” Santos told journalists. “If we are successful, we will cease to have such a sad distinction of being the largest exporter of cocaine. And we will be a country that cares for the environment, increases food security in the world and provides opportunities for its farmers.” He confirmed that starting on October 1, Colombia will stop fumigating coca crops with glyphosate, a method the country has used since 1994 under a coca eradication plan with financial support from the United States. In May, the Colombian government announced to halt aerial spraying after a research arm of the World Health Organization reclassified the herbicide as ”probably carcinogenic”. According to a UN report, cocaine production in Colombia had increased more than 50% from 2013 to 2014. Coca was grown on 69,000 hectares in 2014. This is 100,000 hectares less than in 2000 but cultivation has been on the rise for the past two years. More than 80% of coca is grown in just six provinces. The previous government approach of destroying crops without providing alternatives to the farmers has failed to stop drug-trafficking and only increased poverty in rural areas. Santos said the new policy is also supported by the guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), with whom the government has been engaged in peace talks since 2012. (ab)