THE latest weapon in the war against drugs may soon be spread on the coca
fields of Colombia. The UN International Drug Control Programme is negotiating
with the government of Colombia to conduct open field trials of a strain of the
fungus Fusarium oxysporum that attacks coca plants, the source of
cocaine.
The funding, about $23 million, would come from the US and the UN. But
activists say the fungus could damage the environment and harm Colombia鈥檚
economy.
Fusarium species are common in many parts of the world. Different
strains attack different plant root systems, causing a variety of diseases in
crops. The coca-attacking strain was discovered at a US government research
station in Hawaii after it infected an experimental coca plot. 鈥淚 think there鈥檚
a good possibility it will work. But it鈥檚 never been field-tested outside of
Hawaii,鈥� says Bryan Bailey, a plant pathologist with the US Department of
Agriculture in Beltsville, Maryland, who has worked with the fungus.
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Governments in Colombia and other drug-producing countries such as Peru and
Bolivia already use chemical herbicides to kill coca plants, but the farmers
simply move to different areas and plant new crops. The US government is pushing
this latest effort because fungi such as Fusarium should rapidly become
endemic across a wide area once applied and can survive in the soil for
years.
But last year plans to use a similar fungus to kill marijuana plants in
Florida raised a storm of protest from environmentalists. They pointed out that
the fungus might attack other plants besides their targets. 鈥淭he main concern is
that this is introducing yet another agent in the forced eradication programme
that has done enough damage already. It will lead to more deforestation and more
migration, displacing people even deeper into the Amazon,鈥� says Martin Jelsma of
the Transnational Institute, the Amsterdam-based think tank that released a
draft copy of the UN-Colombia research agreement.
The aim of the trials is to make sure the fungus affects only coca plants and
to find an easy way to manufacture and distribute it, such as coating grains of
rice which are spread from a plane. A State Department official, who asked to
remain anonymous, says the Colombian government is still considering the
agreement.
Bailey says it is likely that the fungus will attack only coca plants. Tests
in greenhouses showed that 50 related plants were not infected by the fungus.
But environmentalists fear that massive applications of the fungus could do
other damage.
According to Jeremy Bigwood, the Washington-based journalist who broke the
news of the agreement, coca farmers in Peru claim that a Fusarium
outbreak there recently damaged coca plants and spread to food crops. But Bailey
says investigators who looked into the reports found that the food crops were
not infected with Fusarium after all.