The Colombian government revoked a resolution that, since 2015, prevented aerial spraying with glyphosate on plantations considered to be of illicit use. The measure, authored by President Abelardo de la Espriella, invalidates Resolution 6 of 2015, established under the government of Juan Manuel Santos, during the peace dialogues.
However, the reactivation of the spraying program depends on compliance with strict requirements determined by the country’s Constitutional Court, to avoid health and ecological damage. For herbicide application to occur, the National Environmental Licenses Authority needs to formulate an Environmental Management Plan. Furthermore, the plan must undergo prior consultation with the indigenous communities that inhabit the affected territories and obtain approval from the National Institute of Health.
The country’s Constitutional Court established, in Judgment T-236 of 2017, that any change in the suspension policy must follow basic criteria, including continuous risk assessment, independent scientific research and the presentation of objective evidence that the procedure will not cause harm to human health and the environment.
For Catalina Oviedo, researcher at the Center for Alternatives to Development in Colombia, overcoming this process will not be an easy task for the Espriella government.
“The fact that they overturned the resolution does not mean that it can already be implemented. This is because the Constitutional Court in Colombia defined a path that is technically complicated. That requires, for example, prior consultations. That requires, for example, permissions from the National Environmental Licenses Agency, the ANLA. And that also requires studies that verify that there is no impact on anyone’s health”, he assesses.
The new president, in his inauguration speech on August 7, stated that he intends to introduce spraying with new generation pesticides that do not harm the population and nature.
Colombian environmental engineer, member of the Community Network of Agricultures for Life, Marcela Menezes, argues that the measure ignores the structural aspects that lead poor communities in the interior to opt for coca planting.
“There are several factors that cause concern. The first is substituting one input for another without being clear about the environmental, economic and social impacts that this can generate. Furthermore, it means following the path of historical governments of carrying out eradication by aerial spraying, without deeply understanding why coca is planted and without attacking the causes that lead communities to plant coca. Or armed actors doing the same”, he assesses.
“The second point is financing — continues the engineer — the money spent on purchasing this chemical input could be invested in addressing the structural causes why we still have the presence of crops for illicit use”, he adds.
Menezes warns that, in addition to this reckless measure, there is a risk that crop replacement programs, promoted by Gustavo Petro’s government, will be defunded. “There are consolidated programs aimed at replacing illicitly used crops, which have been integrating all the social, economic, environmental and organizational factors and conditions of the communities, promoting the transition to other types of crops”, he points out.
“Basically, what this government is doing is discontinuing these programs and focusing the budget on purchasing this chemical input”, says Menezes. The researcher goes further and believes that it is necessary to remove the stigmas from the cultivation of the traditional plant which, although it is certain that it was appropriated by drug trafficking, is not restricted to illicit use.
“We continue to talk about replacing coca crops, but we don’t talk, for example, about the phenomenon of drug trafficking and what currently encourages coca planting. And why, even though this is the discussion that is also taking place in Colombia, should we demonize coca as a crop for illicit use? Why not start thinking about legalizing coca cultivation for the different productive transformations that can be made from it?”, asks the engineer.
In the same vein, Oviedo warns that the anti-drug policy based on the indiscriminate destruction of crops could violate the cultural rights of traditional peoples in the region.
“There are coca leaf crops that are traditionally used by Amazonian communities. And it will be very difficult, as it was a few years ago, for the anti-narcotics police to be able to differentiate which crop is of ancestral use so as not to carry out spraying and which is aimed at drug trafficking or the drug trafficking economy. It is a very difficult and regrettable panorama to go back to thinking about drug policy in such a simplistic way, when we have advanced so much as a country in relation to the possibilities of substitution and, above all, of territorial transformation”, points out the researcher.
Ineffective policy
In addition to the aspects highlighted, Catalina Oviedo questions the effectiveness of the policy. “The fact is that, for the government of 2002, or rather, from 2000 to 2002, of Álvaro Uribe, which was when the first sprayings with glyphosate were carried out in Colombia, we were unable to demonstrate that this mechanism reduced the number of hectares of coca in the country. This is due to the fact that, as the coca economy continues to be a means of subsistence for peasant families in vulnerable situations, it is, therefore, a means life and a livelihood for these families, when they spray with glyphosate, they migrate deeper into the forest or mountain where they live and return to establish another coca crop”, recalls the researcher.
“This is a populist measure. Evidently populist. It follows the logic of the United States’ anti-drug policy, of the current United States government, but which has no evidence that it is functional. On the other hand, it entails very high economic expenditure that does not transform territorial realities”, he adds.
In the case of Colombia, Catalina Oviedo warns of an even greater danger. “The majority of crops for illicit use are grown in areas of environmental importance, as in the case of the Amazon and the Cauca mountains. In the case of the Amazon, there are many crops that are also found in protected areas, whether these are natural national parks, integrated management districts or other categories. With glyphosate, damage has also been demonstrated in terms of soil, water and environmental aspects”, he warns.
“I believe that this will certainly lead to the violation of human rights, the defense of a healthy environment by civil society and a very low possibility that coca leaf cultivation will actually decrease”, concludes the Colombian researcher.
Health and environmental risks
Jakeline Pivato, coordinator of the Permanent Campaign Against Pesticides and For Life, believes that nothing justifies a measure that puts the health of the population at risk and intensifies environmental degradation in a context of climate change.
“Regardless of the purpose, using a highly toxic poison, proven to be carcinogenic, is a serious violation of the right to life, health and a balanced environment. Spraying glyphosate not only kills the plant, but destroys the soil, waterways and directly affects communities, especially peasants and indigenous people. Believing that spraying poison on people is a solution to the issue of drug production is simply reprehensible nonsense”, he analyzes.
“Furthermore, glyphosate is a highly persistent pesticide, that is, the substance applied today could be found in the environment decades later, prolonging its most harmful effects”, warns the activist.
Countries such as Mexico, Austria, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia prohibit or apply severe restrictions to the use of glyphosate on their crops. In Brazil, glyphosate is widely used in soybean, corn and cotton crops. However, the Public Ministry of Labor (MPT) filed a lawsuit this year asking for the pesticide to be banned in the country, due to the high risk to health and the environment.
In December 2025, a scientific article published on the safety of glyphosate, used by Brazilian authorities to authorize the use of the pesticide in the country, was officially unpublished by the North American magazine Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, after proven intervention by the pharmaceutical industry in its preparation.
Source: www.brasildefato.com.br
