More poor Colombian farmers could turn to cultivating coca if a new trade pact with the U.S. results in cheaper imported food flooding the local market, the Associated Press reported April 26.

"What choice do you have when everything you worked hard to build is destroyed overnight?" said Colombian rice farmer Victor Murillo.

The trade deal, signed in February, still must be approved by Colombia's legislature. If passed, it would lift almost all duties on products traded between the U.S. and Colombia. Colombian government officials say the agreement will boost the nation's exports by 10 percent, but local rice, corn, cereal, and poultry farmers say cheap imports from the north could put them out of business.

If that happens, some could turn to growing coca, used to make cocaine, or poppies used to make heroin. "If the government doesn't help farmers, the drug traffickers will," said Rafael Hernandez, general manager of Colombia's rice-grower's association.

That's an argument that Colombian officials used in unsuccessfully urging the Bush administration to increase funding for alternative economic development as part of the multibillion-dollar Plan Colombia, aimed at fighting drug production.