On The back porch of the offices of a ranchers' association in San Vicente, a steamy town on the banks of the river Ca-guan in the southern department of Ca-queta, two dozen community leaders are talking about the future of farming. Here, farming means coca. But these men muse about a future free of drugs. Their discussion has been given urgency by Plan Colombia, a bundle of projects whose centrepiece is a scheme to fight drugs with $1.3 billion in military aid from the United States, approved in June. San Vicente's community leaders favour a different approach. "Instead of planes and glyphosate [the herbicide used to spray the coca fields], they should send us cows," says Bertil Valde-rama, the president of the ranchers' committee. Others suggest a $5m slaughterhouse, new roads and alternative crops.
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