3. Producción
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Item type:Publication, From criminals to citizens: the applicability of Bolivia's community-based coca control policy to Peru(Elsevier, 2021-10-01)Between 2006 and 2019, Bolivia emerged as a world leader in formulating a participatory, non-violent model to gradually limit coca production in a safe and sustainable manner while simultaneously offering farmers realistic economic alternatives to coca. Our study finds that not only has this model reduced violence, but it has effectively expanded social and civil rights in hitherto marginal regions. In contrast, Peru has continued to conceptualize ‘drugs’ as a crime and security issue. This has led to U.S.-financed forced crop eradication, putting the burden onto impoverished farmers, generating violence and instability. At the request of farmers, the Peruvian government has made a tentative move towards implementing one aspect of Bolivia's community control in Peru. Could it work? We address this question by focusing on participatory development with a special emphasis on the role of local organizations and the relationship between growers and the state. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, focus group discussions and secondary research, we find that for community control to have any chance of success in Peru, grassroots organizations must be strengthened and grower trust in the state created. The study also demonstrates that successful participatory development in drug crop regions is contingent on land titling and robust state investment, which strengthens farmer resolve to participate so as to avoid a return to the repression of the past. - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Addressing socio-environmental challenges and unintended consequences of Peruvian drug policy: an analysis in two former cocalero valleys(LSE Press, 2021-01-01)For decades, international governments and the Peruvian state have worked to reduce illicit coca cultivation in valleys that were once among the largest global producers of coca. The principal strategies used in these interventions are drug crop eradication and alternative development (AD), both of which have been operating for over forty years in Peru. These interventions have decreased illicit coca cultivation in targeted areas and increased the number of farmers engaged in alternative crops. However, socio-environmental factors affect farmer’s experiences of these interventions at a micro level, sometimes causing unintended negative consequences. Drawing on qualitative research in the Upper Huallaga and Monzón Valleys, this article details the mechanisms through which socio-environmental vulnerabilities shaped how coca eradication and AD policies are experienced by current and former cocalero farmers. We argue that long-term coca eradication and AD policies in both valleys reproduced social and environmental precarities. In particular, we found that: participation in AD programs was commonly more attainable for farmers who had relatively higher access to resources; successful alternative crop cultivation was often limited by socio-environmental conditions; and ongoing coca eradication continued to push marginalized coca growers into more precarious positions, often leading them to replant coca in more distant forests. For these reasons, illicit coca cultivation continued, albeit at a lower scale and under greater challenges for farmers, alongside attempts to combat it. We conclude the article by discussing these findings in the context of recent scholarship and ongoing supply-side drug policies that claim to support social equity and environmental well-being.