SAN JOSE DEL GUAVIARE, Colombia — The grizzled farmers had come on motorcycles and in pickups from jungle homesteads to a soccer field hours from the nearest town of any consequence.
They sat patiently in white plastic chairs in the sweltering heat as government representatives gave their pitch: Plant legal crops like sugar cane and pineapple — or turn to livestock — and abandon coca leaf, the raw ingredient in cocaine.
Cash subsidies await those who sign up, the speakers vowed. We will help you market your new products, build new roads. There were few takers. The cocaleros, as the growers are known, had heard it all before.
