The Colombian government reported this week that 26,000 hectares of illicit crops have entered a substitution process, a development that serves as validation for the administration of President Gustavo Petro in its fight against drugs. The figure, presented last Friday by President Petro himself from the department of Nariño, has become a symbol of the shift in approach to anti-drug policy, one that seeks to move away from old practices of direct confrontation toward a strategy centered on the participation of rural farming communities.
According to the head of state, the transformation of territories “cannot be done against communities, but with them,” and he highlighted as a historic moment the image of a farmer voluntarily pulling up a coca plant along that path.
This announcement comes at a time of internal tensions over persistent violence in regions such as Cauca and Cesar, where recent attacks against the security forces have left soldiers dead and have once again ignited the debate over the effectiveness of state policies.
For the government, these events do not represent a failure, but rather the continuation of a conflict rooted in illegal economic interests and in the logic of a war that, in Petro’s words, “must fail” in order to make way for structural solutions, even though this policy puts the South American country in direct confrontation with the Trump administration in the United States.
Colombia announces substitution of 26,000 hectares of illicit crops
For decades — and still today — Colombia has been the world’s leading producer of coca leaf, the raw material used to manufacture cocaine. According to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the country accounts for more than 60% of global cultivation, with figures that in 2023 reached around 253,000 hectares. That volume has continued to expand, with estimates placing the total at more than 260,000 hectares recently.
This phenomenon is not only agricultural, but also structural and socioeconomic: it is intertwined with the presence of illegal armed groups, parallel illicit economies such as informal mining, and trafficking networks that supply both local and international markets.
In regions far removed from the reach of the state, coca has served as one of the few economic options for historically neglected rural communities, thus fueling a cycle of violence, poverty, and the profitability of drug trafficking. The result has been, for years, sustained growth in cultivated areas despite state efforts to curb them.
Historically, forced eradication — through aerial spraying or manual interdiction — was the dominant tactic under previous administrations, often supported and financed by the United States.
While these actions succeeded in eliminating large swaths of crops, they rarely managed to reduce the overall supply and, in many cases, displaced production to new areas. Eradication figures have also shown significant fluctuations depending on each government’s political priorities.
The Petro government’s bet: substitution and community
President Petro’s strategy represents a paradigmatic shift away from the traditional war on drugs, something that has put him in radical confrontation with the Trump administration in the United States, to the point that the White House has labeled the Colombian president a “leader of drug trafficking,” a harsh accusation for which — so far — no evidence has been provided.
The current strategy of the Colombian state is not focused exclusively on eliminating crops through force, although Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez has defended the use of drone-based fumigation in areas where armed groups instrumentalize the civilian population.
Beyond these exceptions, the dynamics of the current administration prioritize voluntary substitution, encouraging farmers to abandon coca leaf cultivation in favor of legal crops with state support. Under this model, rural communities are considered allies in productive transformation, not targets of a punitive policy.
According to the government, thousands of rural families have already enrolled in substitution programs, planting hope that processes involving changes in productive habits and access to new agricultural value chains can generate a deeper social impact than eradication alone. Petro has stated that the purpose of this policy is for territorial transformation to converge with social and economic reconciliation, rather than being reduced to the imposition of coercive measures.
In addition, the president has defended his administration’s policy by emphasizing that cocaine seizures have reached historic levels, which he interprets as a sign that pursuing the major drug trafficking structures and their financial resources can yield tangible effects if combined with strategies that do not stigmatize farmers.
The replacement and clash of positions with the United States
The Colombian approach led by Petro has generated friction with the U.S. administration, especially since last January, when President Donald Trump began his second term and adopted a more traditional stance in the fight against drugs.
After months of disagreements, in September the United States included Colombia on a list of countries that “do not cooperate sufficiently” in the war on drugs, a decision not seen since the 1990s and interpreted as a gesture of disapproval toward policies of substitution and the reduction of forced eradication.
Washington’s criticism is based on the persistence of high levels of coca cultivation and on the perception that limiting eradication and betting on substitution may amount to an insufficient response to a problem that, for many international analysts, requires more forceful and coordinated measures.
This diplomatic tension illustrates the fundamental differences between two visions of anti-drug policy: one based on security and eradication, and another that seeks to integrate rural development, social justice, and community transformation. What is certain is that the United States consistently ignores the rising demand generated within its own territory and continues to uphold old policies of persecuting producers.
Toward a ‘total peace’ amid complexity in Colombia
The Petro government’s strategy seeks to navigate the complexity of a conflict that has already spanned several generations and remains threatening despite decades of war and enforcement by the security forces.
By emphasizing the substitution of illicit crops as a central alternative, the executive branch is betting on an approach that recognizes the role of communities and suggests that solving the drug trafficking problem cannot be separated from underlying socioeconomic factors. However, the challenges are immense: cultivation remains at record levels, violence persists in several territories, and international pressures underscore the difficulty of balancing domestic approaches with global expectations.
“Yesterday we lived through a terrible day. Buenos Aires, Cauca, and Aguachica. Death among Colombians. No foreigners died there, as far as I know. Colombians on both sides, driven by greed,” President Petro said at a public event, stressing that these events cannot be interpreted as the collapse of peace efforts.
In this regard, the president also responded to criticism that arose after the armed attacks and defended his Total Peace policy. In his view, attributing the violence to a failure of the government project ignores the structural causes of the conflict. “We are told that in those two events peace failed. Peace never fails. What must fail is war,” he said, while also outlining the challenge of advancing reconciliation processes amid disputes driven by illegal economic interests.