United States Support For Colombia

Fact Sheet released by the Bureau of Western Hemisphere
Affairs
July 17, 2000

Colombia: UNDCP Mycoherbicide
Project

The Government of Colombia and the UN International Drug Control Program
(UNDCP) are discussing potential cooperation to test a biological control
agent that could be used to control illicit coca cultivation. The U.S. has
allocated $3 million of funds appropriated in Fiscal Year 1999 to the UN to
help fund these tests.

No testing of such an agent has been done in Colombia and none will
proceed without the full cooperation and approval of the Colombian
Government.

The discussions on this subject are proceeding against the backdrop of
Colombian Government commitment to eliminate illicit coca cultivation.
Colombia's 122,000-hectare coca crop is the largest in the world, accounting
for about 70% of illicit coca worldwide. Colombia's crop has doubled since
1995. Much of the increase is in guerrilla-dominated areas where
antinarcotics forces have little access and face huge security risks.

Coca cultivation and processing pose serious hazards to Colombia's
ecology. Several hectares of rain forest are slashed and burned for every
hectare of coca planted. For each hectare of coca grown and processed into
cocaine, growers and traffickers, with no respect for the environment,
generate and dump an estimated two tons of pesticides, fertilizers and toxic
processing chemical waste into Colombia's soils, streams, and rivers.

Mycoherbicides are a form of biological control. Biological control is
the science and technology of controlling pests using naturally occurring
enemies of that pest. Mycoherbicides focus on agricultural-related targets
-- in this case illicit coca cultivation -- using fungal biological control
agents in the place of chemical herbicides.

The reliance on naturally occurring agents means that mycoherbicide
technology involves no genetic engineering or alteration. In this regard,
mycoherbicides are a potentially cheaper and environmentally safer way to
eradicate illicit drug crops than chemical herbicides.

The research, development, and potential application of mycoherbicides
in this narcotics control context is identical to the way mycoherbicides are
being used to control pests, promote agricultural development, and advance
environmentally sound integrated pest management worldwide.

So far, testing of mycoherbicides to control coca has been limited to
laboratory research and limited field testing in the U.S. Results have been
promising: these tests identified a mycoherbicide that attacked only coca
plants, killed them, and did not spread to any other host. It has been
effective and, from the important environmental and health safety
perspectives, both host and area-specific.

The Colombia tests are needed to develop definitive data on the safety
and efficacy of these agents in their intended environment. The project
would be undertaken through a comprehensive set of field trials at secure
small sites (probably less than a hectare each) provided by the Government
of Colombia.

The proposed test in Colombia would use only Fusarium that occurs
naturally in Colombia. No biological control agent exogenous to Colombia
would be used.

The project calls for creation of an International Panel of Experts to
design and approve the final research program. An international consultant,
working with a project manager from the implementing agency in Colombia,
would design and monitor progress of experiments.

The U.S. is meanwhile funding several million dollars worth of
complementary research to identify and develop safe and effective biological
controls to combat pests that plague cacao, bananas, coffee, and other
alternative development crops to replace narcotics production.

The herbicide now being used in Colombia is glyphosate, a widely tested
non-toxic chemical herbicide that is used extensively worldwide.
Glyphosate is not a mycoherbicide.

[end of document]

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