By Hugh Bronstein BOGOTA, July 21 (Reuters) - Colombia will reduce its fumigation of crops used to make cocaine in favor of manually pulling coca plants up from the roots, the government said on Saturday, announcing a surprise shift in anti-drug strategy. The news was welcomed by environmentalists opposed to the U.S.-backed practice of spraying herbicides. They say the chemicals ruin water quality and kill legal crops as well as plants vital to the wide biodiversity of this Andean country. Local farmers not involved in growing illicit coca crops have complained bitterly about the spraying and neighboring Ecuador says fumigations in Colombia create health and environmental problems on its side of the border. "When we have committed errors in the fumigation, instead of winning support we provoked complaints," President Alvaro Uribe said in a speech. "We have seen that manual eradication can go much deeper in eliminating coca plants." Spraying has been a key part of Colombia's U.S.-funded anti-cocaine program. But manual eradication does more to ensure coca bushes cannot grow back, as they can after herbicides burn the shiny green leaves off their stalks. "The idea is to increase manual eradication in the areas where it makes sense, which will result in a reduction in fumigations," a government spokesman said. Fabio Arjona, Colombian representative for U.S.-based Conservation International, called the announcement "a tremendous, positive surprise. The government is recognizing for the first time that spraying is not the only way to eradicate coca on a massive scale." Manual eradication also has its risks. Workers using shovels and their hands to pull up the plants have been killed by drug-running leftist rebels who surround their coca plantations with land-mines. Colombia, the world's top cocaine exporter, produces more than 600 tonnes of the drug per year, the government says. The country is in a four-decade-old guerrilla war involving the rebels and far-right paramilitaries. Both fund their operations with Colombia's multibillion-dollar cocaine trade. Thousands are killed in the cross-fire every year as rebels and paramilitaries battle over cocaine-producing land.
