Colombian coca growth 'shocks' UN

The Colombian government, backed by US aid,
has attempted to eradicate the coca crop [EPA]

Colombia's annual coca crop - the foundation for cocaine - increased by 27 per cent last year, a new study says.   The data was released by the UN on Wednesday in a report which called the finding "a surprise and a shock".   It said about 99,000 hectares of coca fields were found in Colombia last year, compared with 78,000 hectares in 2006.

Colombia is the world's primary cocaine producer.   Coca cultivation also increased in Peru and Bolivia, by four and five per cent respectively, the report said.

Crop size  

Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime executive, called the Colombian production figures "a surprise and a shock".  

"A surprise because it comes at a time when the Colombian government is trying so hard to eradicate coca," he said, "a shock because of the magnitude of cultivation."

  Colombia has an eradication programme, backed by a massive US aid package, which destroyed about 210,000 hectares of coca in 2007.

However, coca fields are virtually back to the level of 2002, when Plan Colombia, the joint US-Colombian initiative to fumigate and manually destroy the country's coca, was in its early stages.

The US has spent more than $5bn since 2001 to combat cocaine production in Colombia. The cocaine industry helps to fund an armed campaign against the government that has been running for five decades.

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