Cocaine zone on rise

LIMA. Peru appears to have surpassed Colombia as the world's largest producer of coca leaves, the base ingredient used to make cocaine, and may be on track to become the world's largest supplier of the drug.

By InvestSMART · 4 Mar 2011

By InvestSMART ·
4 Mar 2011

Share

Comments

Print

LIMA. Peru appears to have surpassed Colombia as the world's largest producer of coca leaves, the base ingredient used to make cocaine, and may be on track to become the world's largest supplier of the drug.

Peru may have produced 119,000 tonnes of the leaves in 2009, surpassing Colombia for the first time in 12 years the Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Board said in a report. The area of coca bushes under cultivation rose by 7 per cent, to 59,900 hectares.

The amount of land devoted to farming coca bushes gained for a

fourth year in Peru as eradication campaigns shrank cultivation in neighbouring Colombia, according to the report.