Land access and governance in coca-growing areas of the Colombian Amazon : the case of Puerto Asís, Putumayo

Coca, used in the production of cocaine, is the main cash crop in the municipality of Puerto Asís and the broader subregion of lower Putumayo in the Colombian Amazon. Like rubber and oil extraction, commercial coca cultivation is intertwined with the region’s violent history. Nevertheless, unlike rubber and oil, coca has brought significant benefits to the campesinos living in the area. Among other things, the coca economy has contributed to relatively egalitarian land access in the municipality. Widespread cultivation of this illicit crop has undoubtedly shaped land governance more generally.

Nevertheless, it is often difficult to disentangle the effects of the coca economy from other factors such as the territorial control of armed groups, settler frontier dynamics and thorny State-citizen relations. This is the main challenge the presentation will address, drawing on fieldwork data collected in 2019-2020 and -to a lesser degree- 2015, as well as other sources. It will start with an overview of the context and then examine possible answers to the question: how has the coca economy impacted land access and governance?

The presentation and the discussion, in Spanish, focuses on the case of Puerto Asís but aims to raise broader questions about the governance impacts of illicit (especially drug crop) economies and to encourage creative thinking around the systems, processes and practices used to manage land and resources.

Presentation by Frances Thomson, independent researcher, freelance consultant in Northern Ireland, and member of AGTER since 2021. Frances Thomson specialises in agrarian political economy. Her expertise is on land dispossession in Colombia and, more broadly, land tenure and land law/policies, rural development and livelihoods, environmental conflicts linked to extractivism, illicit drug crop economies, and how all these issues link with violence. Independent researcher.