Standing amid hundreds of African oil palms, their gray and desiccated fronds drooping to the ground, Edgar Barrera shakes his head and speaks of their death sentence.

"What we have is a technological disaster, an economic disaster and a social disaster," said Barrera, superintendent of the Bucarelia company's 12,000-acre African palm grove.

Barrera is referring to a mysterious, fast-spreading and deadly disease called "PC" that has devastated African palm plantations here in the Magdalena River valley area 200 miles north of Bogotá, the capital, and elsewhere in Colombia. More than 60 percent of Bucarelia's palm trees are dead or dying because of it, he said.

The ravages of PC go beyond agriculture; the damage extends to Colombia's drug fighting and energy policies.

By decimating palm groves, the disease is eliminating an alternative crop to coca, cocaine's raw material, which is illegally grown in abundance hereabout. And unless a cure is found, PC could also impede Colombia's ambitious shift to biofuels, including palm oil.

"That little bug is eating our future," said Barrera, an agronomist who said he feels impotent before a sickness that destroyed more than half a million of his company's trees. "

"PC" stands for the Spanish words for "bud rot," and the disease kills any palm tree that becomes infected. First a microorganism called phythophthora attacks the soft growth matrix of the palm. The odor attracts insects called palm weevils, which bore into the tree, killing it. THE END

Source: Seattle Times