The use of coca paste as local currency in parts of Colombia, especially those that depend on cocaine’s raw material as their sole source of income, is an undeniable reality. Whether shopkeepers, with scale in hand, accept grams of the paste for household staples–a practice known as “Cambalache”–or lend credit with crops as collateral, the practices these communities have been using for years share a common denominator: the guarantee that eventually, the paste will be converted into cash. However, for six months now that certainty has faded.

It was quiet, for a Friday at dusk. Notably absent was the ranchera music, blasting at full volume from the Cantina and the pool hall in the center of town, and the buzz of chatter between friends, normal sounds after the end of the working day in Nuevo Colombia. There was no one, even, to cast scrutinizing glances at the strangers who were arriving.

We walked nearly the length of the town, the two blocks it took to reach doña Eulalia, a woman of about 70 who runs one of the town’s boarding houses. She wasn’t expecting us; the information had gotten lost in transit, but she quickly got to work preparing our rooms.

The silence represented two new realities: that many people had left the area in search of work as the crisis stretched on, and that those who remained had neither the energy nor the money to be consuming any product associated with leisure, which had caused many of the pool halls and cantinas to shut their doors. In a large portion of El Guayabero, a region in the rural heart of Colombia made up of more than 90 villages scattered along the Guayabero river, the economy mainly depends on the coca plant, followed by cattle ranching. Outposts like Nueva Colombia, however, are dedicated completely to the cultivation of this crop, considered to be elicit, since there are no roads connecting it with larger towns. To bring cattle or other products to market by river is prohibitively expensive and an almost titanic undertaking.

The residents of Nueva Colombia have seen their food security threatened on multiple occasions, for instance when government forces forcibly eradicate their coca crops, given that the plants are their sole source of income. This has led to confrontations between growers and public forces with no consideration given to injuries, such as the clashes that rolled throughout 2020, leaving at least 15 wounded. “These situations happen time and time again in the region, the violation of human rights has been total in these sectors. There’s a lack of investment from the state and the abandonment by the government–the only state presence in this sector is the military forces and what they do is repress and violate the farming communities with operations of forced eradication, eviction, raids, seizure of livestock… we have a total of 6 people injured by gunfire, and many more injured by non-lethal projectiles from the ESMAD,” explained Pablo Parrado, a social leader in the sector, in August of 2020 following a confrontation with Colombia’s anti-riot police, known as el ESMAD.

This has been the reality for more than 20 years since the national government, in order to put an end to the coca crops, started using fumigation, wiping out farmer’s food crops in the process. However, in August of 2022 the nation’s president, Gustavo Petro, announced that no forced eradication operations should proceed without clear information for growers about crop substitution and without a new drug policy. In his September speech before the United Nations’ General Assembly, the head of state blasted the war on drugs. He proclaimed the justification of protecting the jungle by declaring cocaine to be the grand enemy to be hypocritical rhetoric as long as demand continues for oil and gas extraction, which truly destroys everything in its path. “The growers are detained and thrown in jail in order to destroy or possess the coca crops,” he testified. “The plant is nothing but a plant…and the farmers that grow it because they have nothing else to grow are demonized.”

After demanding an end to an irrational war on drugs, president Petro declared on august 25 that forced eradication would continue, but on industrial crops without the use of fumigation. The eradication goal of this government is 20,000 hectares, 30,000 less than that of the Duque administration, given that their institutional energy is focused on intercepting large shipments, rather than criminalizing the growers.

This year, as reported by the Colombian paper El Tiempo, anti narcotics police have eradicated more than 700 hectares and inspired more than 14 blockades by the community in efforts to prevent these operations. It would seem that the national army has not initiated operations as it awaits the new anti-drug policy announced by Petro.

However, if there’s no military action in Nuevo Colombia, why are residents declaring a humanitarian crisis?

Almost six months in which local armed groups have stopped buying the coca paste have left a sensation of anxiety hanging in the air, and desperation in the growers. The war on drugs has persecuted, stigmatized and prosecuted rural farmers who, abandoned by the Colombian state, have clung to coca cultivation like a life preserver against the cycles of poverty that immerse them, as they are offered no alternatives to overcoming the indicators of rural poverty.  If their crops are eradicated they go hungry, if they’re fumigated they enter into conditions of misery, and if no one buys what they produce, once again they begin to suffer hardships.

In the few days we spent in Nuevo Colombia, we felt the crisis in a variety of settings. Where we slept, a boarding house with dirt floors and beds improvised from rough wood or beer crates to support the mattresses, everything is always very clean. This time, while the place was hygienic, it didn’t smell of its usual cleaner, and the odor of urine lingered in the bathrooms in the days we spent there, no matter how much they cleaned.

“Thank you mamita, it’s been so long since I’ve seen a bill,” said doña Eulalia, clutching my hand as she smiled at me. In moments like these, the privilege that some of us carry is hard to forget. If she has to choose between buying rice or cleaning products, she’s going to choose her necessities, and so her occasional guests miss the floral odor of disinfectant or come across, here and there, signs of rodents.

Doña Eulalia is short, with mostly white hair, habitually evasive of interviews but very kind. Normally when we pay for the rooms, or perhaps moments before, she offers a raffle. It’s her way of bringing in a little extra when guests are scarce. But this time she didn’t do it. She’s stopped selling tickets since, while six months ago people still had some savings, now the peso has stopped circulating. Although everyone dreams of an unexpected windfall in the form of groceries or other treat, buying a raffle is no longer a priority.

After dropping our bags, now after nightfall, we went to eat at doña María’s place. A woman of around 40, robust with a dark complexion and black hair, she had previously warned us that the menu was determined by what there was to be had. Maria not only sells food to earn a living for herself and her 10 year old son, but is also a nurse; she has a small pharmacy and participates in various civic groups. These days, whatever they can fish, accompanied by plantain or yucca, is the principal diet of those who live along the Guayabero river, and so the plate of rice Maia served us was a luxury that testified to the effort this community leader was making to offer us her best service. Long gone were the days in which, on a saturday morning, we could enjoy her buñuelos or those of her competition, the other Ms. María, also of dark complexion but with indigenous features. With the help of their children, they would leave before dawn to deliver the day’s orders. And the candy? There was none, and in the only place that still had chocolate bars, we had to pay with exact change as they had no bills to make change. Sweets are some of the products that can’t be bought in grams of coca paste.

While on the opposite shore of the Guayabero river the effects of this stalemate in the local economy could still be felt, the fact that the community keeps livestock means that they can not only sell the milk for a little extra income, but keep dairy products in the household. Nobody could have imagined that, after arriving in Puerto Nuevo and taking the express boat that runs the approximately 40 minutes to Nuevo Colombia, salt, eggs and cheese would be products hard to find in the kitchens of the families who lived there.

Six months ago women like María Manrique and María Jimenez, mothers and heads of household, sold arepas with cheese, sausage, buñuelos, ice, lemonade and other products to diversify their family’s economy and delight those who found themselves in the heart of El Guayabero. Today, while the lack of income affects the community at large in these territories in which everyone, in some way, has to do with the process of the coca, women are hit particularly hard.

Sonia Arias, who six months ago still attended hungry diners in her restaurant, is living the same story. Since closing it down she’s been working in whatever comes her way, whether it be washing clothes, cooking in the coca farm, or cleaning. “What you use the most here is what’s the hardest to come by right now…I didn’t have money to bring the groceries,” she recalls with sadness. “There are things that you can’t barter for. For example, in the restaurant I took the plant, but since you can’t use it to buy gasoline, I had to shut down.”

In this small town with no electricity, cooking gas, sewage system or other basic rights, for the women the fear lingers; for now menstrual products and anticonceptives can still be bought with coca paste, but the merchandise could run out and they would have no way to correctly manage their menstruation, or could see their sexual and reproductive rights affected.

The next morning after breakfast, we headed out before 6 to a coca plot of around 2 hectares where they were just about to finish the harvest. Every few steps there was a coca plant just under a meter tall. There were 4 pickers, or “raspachines,” working that morning, but at first we saw only 3. They were young–only one looked to be over 20–wet from the rain, the dew from the coca crops, and the sweat that comes with the strenuous work. They were concentrating on finishing filling their “bongo,” a large tarp spread at their feet onto which they tossed the coca leaves.

Miguel Arias, the oldest of the three youths, has a 17-month-old daughter. He and his partner have relied on the support of friends “from outside,” or those who have some savings, when unexpected expenses come up. While he starts work before 5 a.m. harvesting the crops wherever he’s needed, at home, in addition to “some coca,” he grows food for his family. At the moment he’s hoping to finish up soon and go work his own plot. He knows that his baby should have regular check-ups, but for now they have some peace of mind because this year she was seen by a medical brigade who came to the town.  Otherwise there’s no way to take her to San Jose del Guaviare, the capital of the province in which Nuevo Colombia is located, to be seen by a doctor.

In Nuevo Colombia, the clinic hasn’t operated for many years. The nearest center for medical attention is in the town of La Carpa, 4 hours away by canoe, and in which they only offer limited injections, mostly treatments for malaria and other tropical diseases. So the best option is to head to San Jose del Guaviare, at around 4 hours travel, to get medical attention. But the inhabitants of this outpost must confront two obstacles: that they don’t have the 180 thousand pesos (roughly 40 USD) to pay the round trip to the provincial capital, or, even if they do, that they can’t count on reliable transportation. The ferry hasn’t had enough business to run its usual schedule, further isolating the inhabitants of this territory whose health is in the hands of doña Maria–nurse–or doña Roxana–healer–who know some nursing and pharmacy.

As he talked, Miguel never stopped harvesting, which left him occasionally short of breath. He went from plant to plant, stripping every last leaf and tossing them onto the tarp, which he dragged along to the following shrubs. “A lot of people think that because you’re here picking coca, you’re a narco or guerrilla, but it’s not like that. You’re here because you need to work, and it’s even more complicated outside of the countryside,” where residents can at least grow some basic food crops, explains the tall, robust young man with a shy gaze. He scrapes off the last leaves of coca, and in that moment Miguel and his two colleagues, as if their work had been perfectly synchronized without a word, peel off the strips of fabric that protect their fingers, take up each edge of the tarp and gather it up to form a sack, bulging with leaves. Miguel balances as he accommodates the bundle over his head and shoulders, and starts to follow the others toward the front of the fields, looking at the ground to guide him. Someone watching from a distance wouldn’t be able to see his face, or even his head, since it’s completely covered. For the pickers, the heavier the “bongo” the better the earnings; it’s the measure of a productive shift.

In the “laboratory” –a house whose back patio houses an assortment of plastic containers for processing the leaves–hangs a mechanical scale, from which the bundle is suspended to see how much was collected; the workers are paid by kilo. Miguel takes off, opting to catch up with his boss for the day in town rather than wait for breakfast to be served at the job site. Meanwhile the other two young men weigh their bundles, glancing anxiously toward the corral from which any minute the food will arrive. It’s after 9 in the morning and they’re hungry. In that moment appears don Sixto, a Black man who arrived from the province of Chocó more than twenty years back. He was the fourth “raspachin” who had been working in another part of the field, so we were just now meeting him.

Social investment is scarce in villages like Nueva Colombia, but so is information about the difficult situation its residents are confronting. We checked with the government offices responsible for guaranteeing human rights at the municipal and provincial levels, and neither knew what was happening. As inhibited as residents were in interviews throughout the course of this reporting, it’s easy to imagine that they’re even more wary to approach government offices, especially since public officials–such as the governor of Meta, Juan Guillermo Zuluaga–have repeatedly stigmatized them and accused them of having ties to dissident groups. Up until the moment of publication, we had not received a response from the government of the province of Meta about what projects of social investment they had sponsored in the zone. At the municipal level, Jhon Jairo Ibarra, the mayor of Vista Hermosa responded with irreverence to this outlet, that they “had put forward a lot of projects,” avoiding the question. We will update this report once we receive a response to the public records request.

According to social organizations in the territory, in the face of deteriorating guarantees for human rights in Meta, the provincial administration has, instead of creating spaces for dialogue and activating mechanisms to protect communities and human rights defenders, has generated stigmatization and allegations. However, they’ve issued a call to keep in mind that “really the people are entering a hunger crisis. As defenders of public rights we call on the national and provincial governments to tend to these territories and look for a solution to this problem. They must ask themselves ‘how do we reach these communities with investment so that the farmers don’t suffer?” asserted Edilberto Daza, a representative for Human Rights and the International Humanitarian Law for eastern and central colombia, or DHOC.

For Pedro Arenas, co-founder of the organization VisoMutop, this is an opportune moment to implement social programs and alternative development strategies, and generate other possibilities of legal income. “The complaint of the farmers is the lack of capital in circulation. And also that nobody buys their yucca or cuts the price of their plantains, or that the middlemen pay whatever they want for their papayas. The complaint includes that nobody in grocery stores or markets will take their coca paste in exchange for panela, rice or supplies because the vendors are also stuck without cash. The result is that there is an economic recession in the coca-growing regions,” he explains. Arenas says it’s hard to estimate how long this situation could last since coca paste is a non-perishable product, it can be stored.

VisoMutop has received complaints from growers in the provinces of Catatumbo, Guaviare, Cauca and Putamayo that no one is buying coca paste, or they’re buying at a low price. This  could be explained by the current surplus since countries like Honduras and Venezuela are also growing and processing coca, in addition to “some producing enclaves under the control and vertical integration of armed groups within colombia, in other words, zones where they have control of crops, labs,” leaving them little incentive to buy from independent growers.

Arenas also pointed out that while the measures to «suffocate traffickers, money launderers and mafias» that the Minister of Justice Néstor Osuna referenced in a public report–and which represent one of Petro’s main bets–could have caused a “shake-up» temporarily affecting the trafficking routes, the economic recession could also have more to do with the call that the Peace Commissioner Danilo Rueda made to armed actors to disincentivize their participation in the coca trade as a gesture of goodwill before establishing negotiation tables between the ilegal actors and the federal government as part of Petro’s “total peace” strategy. Other drug policy experts we spoke to suggested that the increased demand for fentanyl and other opioids within the United States could also be a factor.

Regardless of whether it’s the actions against the heads of drug trafficking, the dialogue with armed actors or the low prices–although Colombia continues to be the largest producer of coca leaf–rural farmers, who are themselves victims of the armed conflict, today are going hungry or have had to migrate, while in territories like Nueva Colombia they continue to feel the bite since not even coca paste is collateral to cover their needs.

In the beginning, between October and November of 2022, when they stopped first buying coca paste, the town could still use “cambalache” for any product, as was customary, however, as money ran out in the region, the basic necessities began to run low, and in San José del Guaviare they stopped offering credit, making it increasingly difficult to resupply the village.

In the “laboratory» the conversation stops for a moment. Kevin Andrés, a tall, thin young man of 27, and owner of the approximately two hectares we’ve been visiting this morning, has just arrived on a red motorcycle with a couple of lard tubs that now serve as tupperware. One holds fish from the river, accompanied by yucca and plantain, while the other is full of broth. Over breakfast the “raspachines” discussed whether to finish out the processing of the coca leaf that Saturday, March 4, or if it was better to leave everything for Monday. In the end, in part to illustrate the explanation for the group of journalists who never stopped asking questions, they decided to start chopping the leaf with a weedwacker, while little by little they applied lime and ammonia to that crushed leaf, stirring until all the kilos they had collected were in the same condition. From there they would be transferred to another barrel of water with gas for the next stage of the process.

As the others got started, don Sixto, who looks well for his 60 years of age and remains active, tells us that he not only works with coca crops, but in any of the increasingly-scare odd jobs to be found in town. He has a 12-year-old son who still needs his help. He admits that he sends him money when he has it, but, at times like this, since there is no way to receive cash, it’s difficult for him to meet his obligations. His other four children are older, they have their homes in other parts of the country and they have already made him a grandfather and even a great-grandfather. They’ve invited him to go live with them so he wouldn’t have to suffer so many hardships, but don Sixto doesn’t want to go far from his youngest son, because he knows that it wouldn’t be easy for him to return. He jokes that at some point he will leave, and he will start the journey either to where they are or to the afterlife.

At this point, being close to the laboratory is unbearable. The smell is very strong and a discomfort settles in the throat, but Kevin seems unaffected. He’s a father of three and has worked as a farmer since he was 10 years old, particularly with coca plants, saving up to have his own crops. He knows that the situation could be improved by having a road that connects them with the neighboring municipality of Puerto Rico, in order to have another type of income and to end his dependence on the cultivation of coca, but at this moment there is no road, nor is there money. And so he acknowledges between clenched teeth, chagrined by the implausibility of his response, that the immediate solution to the emerging humanitarian crisis in the area would be for the armed groups to resume buying the coca paste.

Pickers in the coca fields receive bags of coca paste corresponding to the amount of work they’ve done. They take their bags to the stores to “cambalachear” for what can still be found and can still be bartered with paste. That afternoon we ran into Didier, a young man from the nearby village of Caño Limón who had once attended the Itinerant School of Campesino Communication of Guayabero, a community journalism workshop supported by El Cuarto Mosquetero, with the hopes of joining Voces del Guayabero, a grassroots news outlet and our partner in this investigation, but had to leave the program due to the distance he would have to travel to attend the trainings.

   • “Were you in Limon?” we asked.

   • “No, I was in Caño San Jose, but the situation is hard here. I’m
        leaving for Puerto Nuevo, y From there I’ll head to Calamar”

   • “Are they buying the paste in Calamar?”

  • “No, but there at least they have livestock, the bosses have
       some cash to pay, and if not I’ll look for some other work.”

Later we overheard Didier, along with two other men, arguing with the only vendor in town who still had gasoline to offer. She didn’t want to take coca paste for the amount they needed to fill up their motorcycles. She was only taking cash. In the end they had to give in, and they went to try their luck in the clothing stores, to see if they could find rubber boots for barter. The rainy season was coming on full force and many hours of motorbike travel awaited them over crude trails.

At the moment we were interviewing Rocío Trujillo, a community leader and shopkeeper in town. She told Didier that she did not have size 43 boots, so Edilson Álvarez, our colleague from Voces del Guayabero, suggested that he buy them in Puerto Nuevo, where there was more variety but where they don’t accept “cambalache.” In the end, he decided the boots would have to do until times of more prosperity, and anyway, only a crack had opened in the upper part.

In these times when food is scarce, when the sick have no way of accessing health services or even good nutrition, in which teachers are juggling to teach children who don’t even have school supplies Rocío concludes, «We are affected as farmers and small business owners. As vendors we have nothing to sell, nor farmers with what to buy. What we need is roads.»