Colombians who grow cocaine's raw material bemoan a lack of support to help them switch crops.

Coca farmer Perea says he has not had the financial support required to stop growing the crop When Perea stopped growing coca - the raw material used to make cocaine - he vowed never to plant it again. He uprooted the green bushes on his small farm in a remote corner of the province of Meta in Colombia, reachable only by river, and replaced them with legal crops like cassava and plantain. Perea was one of thousands who joined a government-run crop substitution programme aimed at helping farmers abandon coca. But much of the promised assistance never arrived, and a lack of roads and recurring floods made it difficult to sell his produce. "It's a tragedy," says Perea. "But when you have children and no work, what choice do you have? If no help ever arrives, you go back to growing it." Colombia's escalating, brutal internal conflict is defining its presidential election The coca leaf is an ancestral crop traditionally used by indigenous communities in teas and medicines. But today most of it is processed into cocaine. An estimated 70% of the global supply of the illegal drug comes from Colombia.