Illicit Drug Crops: Why Farmers Continue to Choose Them

One of the major problems in trying to eradicate illicit drug crops is answering the question of "What will the drug farmers and their families do for income without the crop?" This is a major issue, as drug crops are much more profitable than traditional food crops for the farmers. For an initiative to eradicate these crops to be successful, part of the focus needs to be on the farmers themselves. Otherwise, for each crop that is wiped out, another drug crop will be planted by another financially destitute farmer! In addition, these farms are often in debt to organized narcotics criminals, so the farmers need to continue producing the drug crops to ensure the safety of themselves and their families!

Some initiatives that have been suggested include reducing the market risk for the farmers by ensuring a reasonably priced domestic market or by providing a domestic market with supply-based government subsidization; provision of the specialty crop strains and access to supplies that allows the developed world to produce higher quality and higher yield crops (e.g. having a community tractor that all the small farmers can sign up to use); and development of privately or nationally owned processing and distribution industries. The initiatives also need to look at methods to ensure the personal safety of farmers that are transitioning away from illicit drug crops.

Each nation should ask themselves what aspect of illicit drug crops their nation has problems with, and consider what types of solutions both address the problem and fit their nation's international development aid targets.