Buffett’s son helps Colombia kick cocaine
The eldest son of investor Warren Buffett is spending $200 million to help Colombia kick its cocaine curse.
TIBU, COLOMBIA >> With Colombian military snipers in position, Howard Buffett descends from a helicopter and trudges through the wet grass in steel-toe boots chewed through by his dog’s teeth.
Waiting under a tinroofed shack is a small group of coca farmers. They’ve never heard of multi-billionaire investor Warren Buffett, but after decades of neglect by their own government they’re grateful for the outstretched hand of his eldest son, who they refer to simply as “the gringo.”
“There’s a saying here: The less you know, the better,” said Rubén Morantes, his leathery skin and calloused hands a testament to a lifetime of tillage in one of Colombia’s most-dangerous territories, where outsiders are traditionally mistrusted.
For nearly two decades Buffett has crisscrossed the world giving away part of his father’s fortune to promote food security, conflict mitigation and public safety. But his latest gamble is one of the most daunting yet: helping Colombia kick its cocaine curse.
He is focusing on Tibu, heart of the remote, notoriously lawless Catatumbo region bordering Venezuela where Buffett accompanied President Iván Duque.
Tibu has the second largest coca crop in all of Colombia — 28,200 acres, according to the United Nations. Drug production as well as violence has skyrocketed in the area since armed groups filled the void left by retreating rebels who signed a peace deal with the government in 2016.
The Howard G. Buffett Foundation has committed to spending $200 million over the next few years to transform the impoverished municipality into a model of comprehensive state building. Plans include strengthening security forces and helping farmers secure land titles and substitute coca — the raw material for cocaine — with licit crops like cacao.
The first component is building 185 miles of roads to connect the municipality’s 37,000 residents for the first time with national and international markets. It’s a challenge made more difficult by lurking guerrillas who last year detonated a homemade bomb as army engineers were working on the road, killing five people and injuring several.
“The only way we have confidence that farmers can grow legal crops is if they can get those crops to market,” Buffett told farmers during a visit last month with Duque to La Gabarra, a rural outpost in Tibu. It was the first time any Colombian president had visited the blood-soaked hamlet.
The plan envisions subsidies and training for farmers as they switch crops, as well as helping them find buyers. It also aims to strengthen infrastructure for local law enforcement.