Colombia’s aerial fumigation push fuels fear of coca conflict

Rural Colombians in illegal coca industry raise fears spraying with glyphosate will harm environment, residents’ health.

Boqueron, Guaviare department, Colombia – Henri* lies in a hammock on his front porch with a pistol on the table beside him.

The 36-year-old coca farmer says he was forced to resume the risky business of growing the plant from which cocaine is made in order to make a living after promised government subsidies failed to materialise.

“It’s a hard life here,” he says, becoming visibly uncomfortable when asked about the gun in an interview at his wooden cabin home in Colombia’s remote south-central region of Guaviare.