Peru coffee farms in tax trouble in cocaine zone

Coffee and cocoa farmers from a turbulent cocaine-producing region of Peru say the country's tax agency is unfairly fining their cooperative, and putting at risk their exports of high-quality organic beans to the United States and Europe. Officials from the CACVRA cooperative, the largest of three cooperatives that have worked for years to plant alternative crops in the Ene and Apurimac River Valleys (VRAE), deny allegations of tax evasion made by Peru's tax agency, Sunat. The VRAE is considered by the United Nations to be the world's most productive coca-growing belt. Coca is the main ingredient for cocaine. In the past two years, President Alan Garcia has ramped up troop deployments to the VRAE in a bid to stamp out a remnant band of Shining Path fighters who are involved in the cocaine business. "We are 2,400 farmers of organic coffee and cocoa. We have survived the Shining Path and the drug traffickers, and now we have Sunat on us," said Gregorio Pariona, president of CACVRA's board. Peru is the world's largest exporter of organic coffee.