This warning has been issued by ambassadors of South American countries. The import ban linked to forest clearance (deforestation) could encourage South American farmers to grow more coca shrubs (Erythroxylon coca).
South American diplomats have warned the European Union that its haste in implementing the new law against forest clearance could have serious and previously unforeseen consequences – drawing the poorest farmers into the illegal drugs trade.
The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which comes into force on 1 January next year, will require foreign agricultural producers to prove that they are not using deforested land, or else lose access to the EU market. However, Peruvian and Colombian diplomats believe that this will damage their countries' crop substitution programmes, which deter farmers from growing coca shrub leaves – the source of cocaine.
"A large proportion of small producers used to grow coca shrubs (their leaves)," explained Peru's ambassador to the EU, Luis Chávez Basagoitia (Luis Chávez Basagoitia). "If it becomes difficult to sell cocoa or coffee to EU countries, we cannot rule out that small producers might return to producing coca leaves," he said in an interview with POLITICO.
Drug traffickers would in turn process this output into cocaine and ship it to Europe, where the authorities seize vast quantities of the drug at the ports of Antwerp, Rotterdam and Hamburg. The rise in supply has driven up the number of murders, as local gangs fight for control of the retail market, which was worth almost 12 billion euros in 2021.
"This is a side effect of the regulation that has been adopted which, in my view, has not been taken into account," the Peruvian ambassador noted. In his opinion, the problems could take two forms. The EUDR requires European companies to set up traceability systems showing that their goods have not contributed to overseas forest clearance after December 2020.
In theory, this requirement places an administrative burden on traders, coffee roasters and retailers. In practice, many NGOs have warned that companies will either pass this burden on to smallholder farmers or stop buying what they produce. These farmers could therefore be complying with the law but be unable to afford, or to obtain the means, to prove it, raising the prospect that they will return to the illegal economy, explained Luis Chávez Basagoitia.
Moreover, according to the ambassador, there is also a second situation, in which farmers really are working deforested land, but for good reason. The Peruvian and Colombian armies have long used fumigation (treatment with toxic gas) to destroy coca shrub plantations.