Farmers Switching from Coffee to Poppy in Mexico's Southwestern Heroin Hub Michael Lohmuller - Insight Crime
go to original September 18, 2016

Farmers in the southwestern state of Guerrero are increasingly seeding fields of poppies to cash in on the boom in heroin consumption in the United States. Al Jazeera's Adam Raney speaks to Mexican farmers who have chosen to engage in the illegal business. (Al Jazeera English)

Falling coffee production in Mexico's Guerrero state, in part due to a devastating plant fungus, has reportedly contributed to rising poppy cultivation, in turn facilitating the state's transition into a battleground for competing drug groups.

Coffee production in Guerrero fell 88 percent between 2003 and 2016, from 4,638 tons to 552 tons, reported El Universal. This decline came on top of an over 13,000-ton drop in production following the 1992-93 coffee cycle, which produced an estimated 17,572 tons.

Guerrero's declining coffee production in recent years has been blamed on coffee rust, a fungus that destroys coffee plants and which has eliminated almost 40,000 hectares of coffee crops, reported El Universal. Coffee rust thrives in humid climates, and the landfalls of Hurricane Ingrid and Manuel in 2013 are blamed for creating conditions that allow the disease to spread.

Mexican officials were initially hoping to replant 3,000 coffee plants per hectare by the end of 2016, which would make them ready for harvest in 2020. However, Arturo García Jiménez, director of a local sustainable agricultural organization, said perhaps only half of that figure would be planted due to underfunding from Mexico's secretariat for agriculture and rural development (Secretaría de Agricultura, Ganadería, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca y Alimentación – SAGARPA).

El Universal reports coffee cultivation in Guerrero began falling in the early 1990s, when the Mexican Institute for Coffee (Instituto Mexicano del Café – Inmecafé), which bought coffee for export, started losing its presence in the area. The subsequent drop in prices disincentivized coffee production, and locals began turning to poppy cultivation.

Federico Lorenzano, director of rural development in the municipality of Ayotac, estimated that 600 hectares are under poppy cultivation in Guerrero, but said that the actual number is difficult to know for certain. In comparison, around 23,000 hectares are under coffee cultivation, reported El Universal.

When asked what alternative crops exist in Guerrero to alleviate the coffee crisis, Mario Valdez, a former politician in Guerrero, said: "Well, poppy. There are three things that we live on here: one, opium gum; two, remittances; and three, government subsidies … In that order."

Read the rest at Insight Crime

Related: Governor of Mexico's Guerrero State Again Calls for Poppy Legalization (Insight Crime)

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