Colombia will once again use glyphosate to kill coca plants, after banning the practice for the last year due to carcinogenic concerns, reports The Tampa Bay Tribune. The decision to stop using glyphosate came after the World Health Organization determined that the pesticide “probably causes cancer.” Although, Monsanto and other glyphosate-product manufacturers have countered that a 2012 study by the EPA found the chemical to be safe.
Colombian officials have promised that this new round of spraying will be safer, with more targeted applications rather than flyover sprays in American-manned planes, as was the protocol for the last two decades.
“We’ll do it in a way that doesn’t contaminate, which is the same way it’s applied in any normal agricultural project,” Defense Minister Luis Carlos Villegas told La FM radio.
Colombia’s leftist party likens the sprays to the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, arguing that glyphosate poisons the land and the people living there. Conservatives counter that coca will overtake the country without the use of chemicals, but some experts say that a more effective method would be to manually pull up the plants by the roots — a strategy that already has seen success. Otherwise, growers simply flee to national parks, where they’re safe from sprays. The new targeted spray approach also will be extremely expensive, since spray teams will have to be protected by armed guards.
Colombia’s announcement comes ahead of a United Nations conference in New York City this week on the global war against drugs, says the Tribune, adding that Colombia is the largest supplier of cocaine to the U.S.