Stop the Inhumane Practice of Crop Spraying

The U.S. Needs to Stop Policing Drugs Around the World and begin to focus on what it can control: itself.

We need to decriminalize opium in Afghanistan and make people more intelligent about their behavior in America. We need to give people in America the tools to make proper decisions and good choices. These tools include proper funding for all schools, counseling centers, and treatment facilities. In Afghanistan as in South America we should not be spraying chemicals on people’s land in an effort to destroy crops that are illegal because it is harmful to the health of the people and the environment. It destroys legal crops along with illegal ones. It pollutes drinking water and adds carcinogens to the environment not to mention giving more money unnecessarily to the large corporations who do this.

Here is some evidence of this practice.

Charles P. Preston IV Major Paper submitted to the Faculty of the
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master in Public and International Affairs

December 2, 2004
Blacksburg, Virginia
Keywords: Colombia, Plan Colombia, Drugs, Conflict,
Public Policy Analysis, Narco-Trafficking
Copyright 2004, Charles P. Preston IV

While media attention tends to focus on corruption and atrocities by the Colombian Army, often
unproven, aerial crop fumigation can be considered a legitimate human rights issue that
needs to be addressed. The development of crop eradication strategies does not give
adequate attention to the negative effects of such spaying. Consequently, the impact of
eradication operations is particularly severe on many peasant farmers who farm small plots
of coca adjacent to their subsistence crops. The presumption on the part of program
officials is that these farmers are trying to conceal coca plants by planting coca adjacent to
legal crops. Even though aerial sprayers officially target only large-scale plots of coca,
invariably many legal crops are caught in the crossfire. This reality can make it extremely
difficult for the peasants in remote regions to feed their families. In fact, the International
Rights Fund, on behalf 10,000 Ecuadorian peasant farmers and Amazonian Indians have
sued DynCorp because of its eradication efforts along the Colombian and Ecuadorian
border (Walcott 2003). Aerial spraying also creates an environmental problem,
contaminating streams with chemical run-off, affecting fish and entering the food chain.
Spraying has also resulted in the death of cattle and other farm animals (Carpenter 2003,
163). The economic impact of indiscriminate aerial spraying on small farmers is an
important consideration. In many instances, rural families are forced to migrate to avoid
starvation, adding to the large internal displacement problem. Furthermore, many
conservationists argue that with increases in fumigated land, more narco-traffickers will
slash and burn forests to make way for new crops. Environmentalists argue this creates a
deleterious cycle that increases destruction of rainforests (Walcott 2003).