Over 100,000 families across Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia grow coca. Not because it's profitable - farmers get 70 cents per gram that sells for €80 in Berlin. They grow it because they have no choice. No roads. No buyers for legal crops. Armed cartels at the door.
Two sides, neither good
The Buyers
Armed groups - cartels, disidencias, paramilitary successors - control the purchasing. The price is not negotiable. Sell elsewhere, and they'll pay you a visit.
The State
For decades, helicopters sprayed glyphosate - until the WHO classified it as "probably carcinogenic" in 2015 and Colombia banned aerial spraying. The coca died. So did the plantains, the vegetables, the fruit trees. The substitution program? Waiting list, years. And those on the list still can't plant what has buyers.
Who grows
- Nasa, Emberá, Awá - indigenous peoples whose land was never really their land. No cadastre, no titles, no credit for legal agriculture.
- Afro-Colombian communities in the Pacific lowlands. Eight hours by boat to the nearest town. Bananas rot before they arrive.
- Displaced small farmers - driven from their villages by conflict, resettled in areas without roads.
The calculation
A gram costs 80 euros in Berlin-Mitte. Farmers get 70 cents. For the leaves, the harvest, the risk.
The risk stays at the bottom
Arrest when the army comes. Glyphosate spraying that poisons everything. Threats if the delivery isn't right. The profit goes up. The risk stays with those who earn the least.
Free choice?
A sack of coffee brings maybe 2 euros per kilo - if there's a road to market. Often there isn't. Cocoa: similar. Plantains? No buyer comes that far.
Coca has an advantage: The buyers come to you. On mules, if necessary.
Who bears responsibility: The farmers in Colombia or the people at the other end of the chain who have the money?