Coca production in Colombia

[1] The great majority of coca cultivation takes place in the departments of Putumayo, Caquetá, Meta, Guaviare, Nariño, Antioquia, and Vichada.

[3] The US Department of State estimated in its 2015 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report that the area devoted to coca cultivation remained relatively stable in 2013, increasing only three percent from 78,000 hectares (190,000 acres) in 2012 to 85,000 hectares (210,000 acres) in 2013, with an increase primarily in Norte de Santander, national parks, indigenous reserves, within a 10-kilometer zone along the border with Ecuador where aerial spraying is prohibited, and along the Pacific coast, and it was decreasing in the center of the country.

[9][10] The Colombian government has programs to eradicate coca by mechanical means (burning or cutting) or with herbicides, such as glyphosate sprayed by airplanes and helicopters.

Also, because of Colombia's national elections, 669 members of the Colombian national police’s primary interdiction force, the Anti-Narcotics Directorate's (DIRAN) Jungla commando force, and between 45,000 and 60,000 police officers during the three-month presidential campaign and voting period had been unavailable for manual coca eradication[7] The aerial spraying of glyphosate herbicide is one of the most controversial methods of coca eradication.

[15] Soil erosion and the chemical pollution caused by aerial spraying of glyphosate herbicide have negative effects on Colombia's environment and people.

In December 2000, Dutch journalist Marjon van Royen found that "because the chemical is sprayed in Colombia from planes on inhabited areas, there have been consistent health complaints [in humans].

In some areas, 80 percent of the children of the indigenous community fell sick with skin rashes, fever, diarrhoea and eye infections.

[11][page needed] Though official documentation of the health effects of glyphosate spraying in Colombia are virtually non-existent, neighbouring Ecuador has conducted studies to determine the cause of mysterious illnesses amongst people living along the border of Colombia and has since demanded that no aerial sprayings occur within 10 km of the border because of the damages caused to people, animals and environment in that area.