Lima - The Peruvian government Wednesday rejected demands by coca leaf producers that the state adopt the farmers' plan to reduce crop sizes and stop its forced eradication programme. Around 1,000 coca leaf producers demonstrated Tuesday before Congress in Lima against the government-sponsored destruction of their crops.
The farmers demanded that the state adopt their own plan for the gradual reduction of the surfaces planted with coca.
"There is no way we are going to accept that. You do not accept conditions demanded by criminals," Peruvian government Chief of Staff Javier Velasquez Quesquen said Wednesday.
Demonstrators complained that the authorities were pulling out coca plants without offering empoverished farmers a viable alternative, the daily La Republica reported Wednesday citing producers' association Cenacop.
Peru is the world's second-largest producer of coca leaves and of cocaine, an illegal drug that is obtained from the leaves. Colombia is the largest producer of both.
In Andean countries, coca leaves are traditionally chewed to combat hunger and the effects of high altitude.
However, the Peruvian government is trying to eradicate coca crops since various studies show that over 90 per cent of the coca that is produced in the country goes to drug trafficking. A very small portion of production is enough to satisfy local demand, it says.
