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Making coffee - Source: ONE News -
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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.
The VRAE was also a key battleground in the 1980s and 1990s, when Peru's government fought leftist insurgencies such as the Maoist Shining Path rebels.
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.
Many small farmers in the VRAE plant a mix of crops including coffee, cocoa, and fruits. Some keep a small patch of coca, which functions as a parallel currency.
"We are going to disappear from an area of conflict. Now that (Sunat) has started with us, it will be the other cooperatives next," Pariona said.
Peru is the world's largest exporter of organic coffee.
Cesar Rivas, the head of Peru's Junta Nacional de Cafe, a coffee chamber, said Sunat has shown "a complete lack of understanding of rural life that is causing farmers who work in the legitimate economy to fail."
Rivas said Sunat has told farmers they need to put their money in banks, even though the nearest bank in some cases is more than eight hours from their fields.
CACVRA officials were in Lima on Wednesday as they try to persuade Congress to act on a law that would clarify tax rules for cooperatives.
Sunat officials could not be reached for comment.
