Harvesting Tattoo Ink, not Coca
For ten years, the United States has been helping the Colombian military fight a six billion dollar war on coca, the plant used to make cocaine. The major focus has been eradicating cultivation of the plant by manual removal and pesticide spraying. But increasingly, there are efforts to help farmers find alternatives to growing coca. As Conrad Fox reports from the Choco forest in western Colombia, one project has farmers picking native fruit to make blue ink for tattoos.
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