Posts
The plummeting price of cocoa beans...has persuaded some Colombian farmers to return to growing coca leaves...the raw material for cocaine.
Cocoa/chocolate...was once the hot crop.
The government encouraged its planting...to stunt cocaine production...and the FARC rebels that lived off the proceeds...acting as middlemen protectors.
But...the EU's austerity crisis has cooled demand cocoa...and once threatened Ivory Coast production has resumed.
Cocoa rices have dropped 40%...so the number of hectares planted with coca rose by 3.2% in 2011.
