Elena Hernández moved to Guaviare, a coca-growing region, during the boom years of the 1990s, lured by better wages.
“There was more money back then. You could see them everywhere,” she says. “I managed to save and buy a small house.”
But the coca industry has also brought violence and unrest. Armed groups fought for control, and the government attempted to curb production through manual extermination, aerial fumigation, and arrests.
These efforts reduced the family’s income but failed to deter cultivation.
So when the then-government introduced a national substitution program in 2017, Hernández was eager to join the estimated 100,000 households who were promised financial support in exchange for quitting coca.
Each household was scheduled to receive 36 million Colombian pesos ($11,000, £8,000) over two years.
“The way it was presented to us, it looked very promising for the development of our territory,” Hernández said.
The program, known as the National Comprehensive Program for Illegal Crop Substitution (PNIS), was created through a 2016 peace agreement between the government and the Farc, Colombia’s largest guerrilla group.
In exchange for uprooting their coca plants, farmers will also receive technical assistance, including an agronomist, and advice on soil management.
Alternative programs existed previously, but their scale was still limited. PNIS was the most ambitious attempt to date, and at first it seemed to work.
In parts of southern Meta and Guaviare, coca fields have been replaced by lemon trees, banana crops and small livestock farms. Many farmers, like Hernández, have stayed away from coca.
But that doesn’t mean they consider it a success.
“The government was not very committed to our farmers. We were treated badly,” explains Hernández, noting the problems that emerged early on.
Payments were often delayed and technical support was often unrealized. In rural areas, government presence was weak and inter-agency coordination was poor, so support often did not reach local communities.
As political priorities shifted, the program’s momentum weakened. Iván Duque, who became Colombia’s president in 2018, refocused the government’s approach on eradication and security strategies.
When current President Gustavo Petro took office in 2022, PNIS was behind schedule and had difficulty reaching the community.
But some farmers did report improvements. For Doralba Bejarano, a native of Puerto Rico in southern Meta, the situation improved when the help that had been stalled began to arrive.
“Before we started the program, we were terrified,” she says. “We had to hide the coca paste because the police and army would put us in jail.” Coca paste is a more concentrated form of coca used to produce cocaine, allowing growers to earn more than selling the raw leaves.
Now she says she has peace of mind. “I can go wherever I want. There’s no reason to hide.”
She said many people in her community are now receiving government support to promote and sell non-coca crops and other foods.
