FT.
Non-state guerrillas in Columbia are using genetic engineering to boost
revenues and defeat defoliation. The innovation continues (here's the Wired story on selective breeding).
Colombian police have identified a genetically modified and
super-hardy coca “tree” that yields up to eight times more cocaine than
a traditional shrub… With the help of
foreign agronomists, the police say, traffickers have developed a
leafier strain of plant that grows to 9ft, at least twice the height of
the traditional shrub. The size and strength of the plant makes it
resistant to herbicides. More important, the modified coca contains
about four times more cocaine alkaloid. Coca bushes are tended by
peasant farmers who harvest the leaves and sell them to Colombia's
guerrilla and paramilitary armies. [John Robb's Weblog]