Colombia coca crop steady in 2019, U.S. says

BOGOTA, March 5 (Reuters) - Cultivation of coca, the base ingredient in cocaine, was stable in Colombia last year at 212,000 hectares (524,000 acres), the Trump administration said on Thursday, while potential cocaine production was up by 8% to 951 metric tons. The South American country has come under sustained pressure from the White House to reduce cultivation of the crop using a range of tools, including the possible re-introduction of aerial fumigation with glyphosate.

President Ivan Duque's administration aims to eradicate 130,000 hectares (321,237 acres) of coca this year, including eventual aerial spraying.

"Coca cultivation in Colombia remained stable at 212,000 hectares in 2019, from 208,000 hectares in 2018, while potential pure cocaine production increased slightly by 8% to 951 metric tons in 2019, from 879 metric tons in 2018," the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said in a report.

"Where Colombian eradication activities were concentrated, coca cultivation substantially decreased, validating President Duque's efforts," it added.

Colombia suspended aerial fumigation of glyphosate in 2015, after the World Health Organization said the herbicide was harmful to the environment and health, potentially causing cancer. Duque's government is working to meet various health and environmental requirements demanded by the Constitutional Court before it can restart aerial fumigation. The United States and Colombia are developing a joint plan to cut coca cultivation and cocaine production by 50 percent by year-end 2023, the statement added. Drug trafficking has long fed Colombia's internal armed conflict. Leftist rebel group the National Liberation Army (ELN), dissidents from the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas - who demobilized under a 2016 peace deal - and criminal groups all make money from the trade, according to security sources. (Reporting by Julia Symmes Cobb Editing by Leslie Adler)