Coca production in Colombia went up 27 per cent in 2008, says the International Narcotics Control Board, a UN-alligned anti-narcotics agency.
Colombia remains the world’s largest coca producer and grows 55% of the plant that is the basis of cocaine. Peru is second with 29%, followed by Bolivia with 16%.
The annual report stated that Colombian authorities did try to stop the cultivation of coca, but these efforts were hampered by illegal armed groups violently defending their crops.
Colokmbia “has not won the fight against drugs, but hasn’t lost it either,” INCB director Carlos Albornoz Guerrero told Caracol Radio, adding that better means to detect coca production may have upped the figure.