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Colombia has announced it will resume spraying cocaine crops with herbicide, using drones to tackle record levels of cocaine production, which has strained relations with the Trump administration. The government confirmed the new action on Monday, which will begin operating on Thursday.
The South American nation previously banned aerial fumigation of coca crops in 2015, after the World Health Organization classified glyphosate – an herbicide used in spray planes – as a carcinogen.
Justice Minister Andres Idarraga said the high-tech drone initiative has received government approval. He said the drones would be deployed in areas where criminal gangs and rebel groups force farmers to cultivate coca, the primary ingredient of cocaine. Idarraga said this approach would ensure “that our security forces will be more secure.”
Environmental activists have long warned that small airplanes spraying coca fields – often flown by US contractors – are also leaching their chemicals into legitimate crops and streams, polluting fragile ecosystems and leaving villagers exposed to contaminated water.
After suspending aerial fumigation, Colombia escalated a manual eradication campaign conducted by soldiers.
But without aerial spraying, coca cultivation expanded as it became harder for the military to destroy coca crops in remote areas, where plantations are guarded by drug gangs and rebel groups, and sometimes surrounded by land mines.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that in 2024, 261,000 hectares (about 645,000 acres) of coca were planted in Colombia, almost double the amount planted in 2016.
According to Idarraga, the drones will not fly closer than 1.5 meters (5 feet) from their targets to ensure that water sources and legal crops are not sprayed. A drone would be capable of destroying approximately one hectare of coca crop every 30 minutes.
“It’s a controlled and efficient method,” Idarraga said, adding that “it minimizes environmental risks.”
The idea of using drones to destroy coca fields was first put forward by the right-wing president in 2018 ivan dukeAdministration of. But the plans were delayed due to a lack of consensus among government agencies and Colombia’s parliament.
Colombia’s current government, led by leftist President Gustavo Petro, initially rejected aerial fumigation and other forced eradication campaigns, saying it did not want to target poor farmers growing coca for drug dealers because they lacked legal alternatives.
Petro’s administration has become more aggressive on the issue of coca crops this year as it tries to defeat rebel groups financed by the illegal drug trade that have refused to sign peace deals with the government and who have recently stepped up attacks in Colombian cities.
United States of America Colombia’s decision to halt aerial fumigation has long been criticized. trump The administration, which has accused Petro’s government of not doing enough to curb cocaine production, in September added Colombia to a list of countries failing to cooperate in the drug war for the first time in nearly 30 years, leading to the loss of millions of dollars in military and economic cooperation.
In October, the US also imposed sanctions on Petro, accusing it of allowing “drug cartels to flourish” in the country. more recently, Washington Threatened to authorize land strikes against drug traffickers in Colombia.
Petro has vehemently denied US accusations of not doing enough to target drug traffickers and said Colombian security forces are intercepting a record number of cocaine shipments, even as the country is also producing record amounts of the drug.