Peru’s coca leaf cultivation reaches record high in 2022

A woman lays out coca leaves in 2009 in San Francisco, a town in the region of Ayacucho, Peru, that is on the front line of the coca and cocaine trade. The Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro river valleys (VRAEM) in Peru are among the world's most intensive coca growing areas [File: Mariana Bazo/Reuters]

Land devoted to the cultivation of coca leaves in Peru increased by 18 percent between 2021 and 2022, with some 95,000 hectares (367 square miles) now being used to grow the raw ingredient for cocaine, the government’s anti-drug authorities have said.

Though the cultivation of coca is legal for traditional purposes such as being chewed for energy or administered as an antidote for altitude sickness in the Andean nation, analysts and government officials estimate that some 90 percent of Peru’s crop is now used in the illicit drug trade.