Coca provides vital economic support with fleeting benefits for Colombia’s most remote regions

Something is happening in the illegal business of growing coca leaf and selling its paste that takes place in what some call the “invisible Colombia.” These are the lands that extend beyond what sociologists have labelled the country’s agrarian frontiers, where the government’s presence seems nothing more than a distant echo. A group of researchers, largely from Bogota’s University of the Andes, recently published a revealing study on one of the shadiest parts of the Colombian economy, one difficult to map with statistical accuracy. The investigation’s most solid conclusions are threefold. Its main finding is that peasant producers — the first link in the coca supply chain — contributed to a 0.4% growth of the country’s economy during years when it grew by a total average of 3%.

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