Fact Sheet: Colombia/UNDCP Mycoherbicide Project

ORGINAL (HTML)

The Government of Colombia and the UN International Drug Control Program (UNDCP) are discussing potential cooperation to test a biological control agent that could be used to control illicit coca cultivation. The U.S. has allocated $3 million of funds appropriated in Fiscal Year 1999 to the UN to help fund these tests.

Funds have not yet been disbursed according to a State Dept. official who says they will be handed over to the UN when some country finally signs on to the program.

No testing of such an agent has been done in Colombia and none will proceed without the full cooperation and approval of the Colombian government.

Government approval is necessary but should be accompanied by complete documentation on development, fermentation, formulations and delivery systems made available to all stakeholders, including scientists, environmental organizations, journalists, local governments and organizations in the areas affected. Research on effects on environment, including micro-organisms, plant-life, animals and humans, should be available for independent evaluation.

The discussions on this subject are proceeding against the backdrop of Colombian government commitment to eliminate illicit coca cultivation. Colombia’s 122,000-hectare coca crop is the largest in the world, accounting for about 70% of illicit coca worldwide. Colombia’s crop has doubled since 1995. Much of the increase is in guerrilla-dominated areas where antinarcotics forces have little access and face huge security risks.

Note that Colombia’s coca crop increase parallels--although slightly later--Peru’s precipitous crop decrease reflecting the effect of the coca fungus acknowledged by the Dept. of State only in one year - 1993. The fungus' devastating effect both on coca and other food crops is amply reflected in widespread residents and growers complaints and accusations in succeeding years in most coca-growing areas of Peru affected by the Fusarium oxysporum epidemic.

In essence the fungus in Peru has caused the tremendous growth of coca cultivation in Colombia, as the "business" shifted to uncontaminated soil.

Coca cultivation and processing pose serious hazards to Colombia's ecology. Several hectares of rain forest are slashed and burned for every hectare of coca planted. For each hectare of coca grown and processed into cocaine, growers and traffickers, with no respect for the environment, generate and dump an estimated two tons of pesticides, fertilizers and toxic processing chemical waste into Colombia's soils, streams, and rivers.

Has research into the chemical effects on soil and water from the years of glyphosate spraying been done by an independent entity? Both laboratory research and complaints by residents question the EPA’s insistence on the safety of glyphosate.

Mycoherbicides are a form of biological control. Biological control is the science and technology of controlling pests using naturally occurring enemies of that pest. Mycoherbicides focus on agricultural-related targets--in this case illicit coca cultivation--using fungal biological control agents in the place of chemical herbicides.

Evidently the US is now dropping its "weed" tag for coca it has used for years, now preferring the more neutral and less disingenuous use of "agricultural-related targets" - but still cannot bring itself to the real target which is a "crop." Mycoherbicides against narcotic plants = mycoherbicides against CROPS!!!

The reliance on naturally-occurring agents means that mycoherbicide technology involves no genetic engineering or alteration. In this regard, mycoherbicides are a potentially cheaper and environmentally safer way to eradicate illicit drug crops than chemical herbicides.

The inundative character of mycoherbicides (i.e. it's going to be applied in much greater amounts than "naturally" found in the soil -ARS cites 33.6 kilograms per hectare) gives lie to the justification of using it as a "potentially...environmentally safer way" to eradicate coca.

The "natural" argument is specious. Even "natural" fertilizers like guano or horse manure, if over-applied, will kill a crop. With biological agents, the question is even more serious because in an inundative application there is the untested possibility of the fungus mutating to attack other crops, or the large amounts of fungus affecting plants and opening them up to other fungus diseases to which they are normally host.

Without specialized genetic engineering to "gene-tag" the fungus——which ARS has rejected as a project-- there will be virtually no way to ascertain that it has not mutated or invaded other plants, as Fusarium is wont to do. But with such a genetically-engineered tag, the organism could then be banned under International conventions prohibiting the release of genetically-altered organisms.

The research, development and potential application of mycoherbicides in this narcotics control context is identical to the way mycoherbicides are being used to control pests, promote agricultural development and advance environmentally sound integrated pest management worldwide.

Wrong.

Mycoherbicides are not being used on areas where:

•• populations are being sprayed against their will,

•• growers and their families live within the very fields being sprayed,

•• those families drink water kept in open containers in those homes,

•• growers chew the target "crop" being sprayed,

•• growers’’ children run through and play in either the fields or with the leaves of the target crop as is normal in coca-growing areas.

So far, testing of mycoherbicides to control coca has been limited to laboratory research and limited field testing in the U.S. Results have been promising: these tests identified a mycoherbicide that attacked only coca plant, killed them, and did not spread to any other host. It has been effective and from the important environmental and health safety perspectives, both host and area-specific.

Even ARS admits that the requisite host-specificity tests have not been done on crops native to Amazon countries. The host-specificity tests done by the British IMI, the only ones released so far by the US government, were done only on very few North American plants, some of which Fusarium did invade and kill.

There have been no tests or papers or publications on research released by the US government which show that studies have been done on F. oxysporum f. sp. Erythroxylum, strain EN-4 - the strain promoted for application, for its effect on its effect on micro-organisms, animal or human health in any environment.

The Colombia tests are needed to develop definitive data on the safety and efficacy of these agents in their intended environment. The project would be undertaken through a comprehensive set of field trials at secure small sites (probably less than a hectare each) provided by the Government of Colombia.

The UN proposal originally submitted to the Colombia government specifically called for "large-scale" trials. The question arises as to what size trials would be needed to evaluate the effects of the US’s intended massive eradication of Colombia’s 122,000 hectares.

The proposed test in Colombia would use only Fusarium that occurs naturally in Colombia. No biological control agent exogenous to Colombia would be used.

The question of what is "naturally" found in Colombia must be examined carefully, since Dr. David Sands a major proponent - and potential financial beneficiary - of the mycoherbicide project, claims he received a fungus-laden coca plant in the "mail" from Colombia which he then identified as EN-4. He gave no details as to who sent it from where?

The project calls for creation of an International Panel of Experts to design and approve the final research program. An international consultant, working with a project manager from the implementing agency in Colombia, would design and monitor progress of experiments.

There is no indication of who would choose the Experts, nor specifications about their fields of expertise specified in the UN proposal. Only an independently-chosen and financially un-tethered Panel could be expected to objectively and honestly evaluate and monitor any mycoherbicide project.

The U.S. is meanwhile funding several million dollars worth of complementary research to identify and develop safe and effective biological controls to combat pests that plague cacao, bananas, coffee, and other alternative development crops to replace narcotics production.

Perhaps it would not be too much to expect, considering the clamor of complaints about alternative crops being affected by the Peruvian fungus that ARS fund as well a study examining this possibility. Excuses that this could not be done because of terrorism in the ARS study done on the Peruvian coca fungus from 1994-96, are suspect since the people who collected the fungus samples from coca could just as easily have collected the sick food crop plants as well. There is no excuse for not doing the study now as terrorism is non-existent in the affected coca areas.

The herbicide now being used in Colombia is glyphosate, a widely tested non-toxic chemical herbicide that is used extensively worldwide. Glyphosate is not a mycoherbicide.

Yes, true. Glyphosate is not a mycoherbicide. But research shows that it is indeed toxic.

See: http://www.geneticconcern.org/submission/c3s8.htm sub-heading: "Toxicity".