Colombia Lifts Glyphosate Ban but Spray Planes Stay Grounded
Colombia · DRUG POLICY
Key Facts
- —Instrument Resolution 0006 of 2026 repealed the 2015 order suspending aerial glyphosate spraying.
- —Signed Vice-Minister Carlos Gónima Díaz-Granados signed the text on 18 August 2026.
- —Not yet The resolution says the repeal does not mean automatic resumption of flights.
- —Conditions Environmental plans, prior consultation and a health opinion must all be completed first.
- —Coca Colombia had 261,000 hectares of coca at the end of 2024, the United Nations says.
Resolution 0006 of 2026 ends a decade-old prohibition without clearing any aircraft to fly.
Colombia’s National Narcotics Council has repealed the 2015 order that halted aerial glyphosate spraying over coca fields. The repeal does not restart the flights, and several legal conditions remain unmet.
What the government actually changed
Colombia’s National Narcotics Council signed Resolution 0006 of 2026 on 18 August. The text became public on 28 August, after it appeared in the official gazette.
The resolution repeals Resolution 6 of 2015, which suspended spraying with the herbicide nationwide. Carlos Gónima Díaz-Granados, vice-minister for criminal policy and restorative justice, signed the new text.
The council is known in Spanish as the Consejo Nacional de Estupefacientes. It sets national drug policy and governs the eradication programme flown by the police.
The document states plainly that the repeal does not imply automatic resumption of the programme. That single clause is the difference between a headline and an operational change.
The 2015 order that has now gone
Resolution 6 of 2015 was signed on 29 May 2015 by justice minister Yesid Reyes Alvarado. It ordered a nationwide halt to aerial glyphosate spraying over illicit crops.
The trigger was a finding by the cancer agency of the World Health Organization. Its International Agency for Research on Cancer had called glyphosate probably carcinogenic to humans.
A second order followed from the environmental regulator on 30 September 2015. Resolution 1214 suspended the spraying programme itself under the precautionary principle.
Together the two orders grounded the fleet and ended two decades of chemical eradication from the air. Ground application of the herbicide was allowed again from 2016.
Why the aircraft cannot fly yet
The new resolution leaves every judicial and administrative hurdle standing. It removes a prohibition without granting an authorisation, and that difference matters.
Five requirements must be met at the same time before aerial glyphosate spraying can restart. Colombian outlets that have read the text list them consistently.
The environmental regulator must hold an active general environmental management plan for the activity. It must also formally lift the precautionary suspension imposed in 2015.
Each target area then needs its own specific management plan approved before any flight. The council’s technical secretariat must verify that every step has been completed.
The National Institute of Health must also issue a favourable opinion on health risk. Without that opinion the secretariat cannot clear work in any sector.
The conditions the Constitutional Court set
Sentencia T-236 de 2017 is the ruling that shaped this whole debate. It did not ban the practice, but it imposed demanding safeguards on the state.
The court required risk rules written by a body independent of the spraying programme. It also demanded continuous risk evaluation and rigorous, impartial scientific research.
A later ruling, Sentencia T-413 de 2021, added further duties on the government. It called for updated data, evaluation of each target polygon and genuine farmer participation.
Prior consultation with Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities is compulsory in their territories. That duty flows from Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization, adopted by Law 21 of 1991.
The court has also policed compliance through follow-up orders, among them Auto 387 of 2019. That order stressed voluntary substitution and manual eradication before any return to the air.
Where the environmental licence stands
The National Environmental Licensing Authority, known by its Spanish initials ANLA, holds the file. Its management plan for the programme dates back to Resolution 1065 of 2001.
ANLA modified that plan in April 2021 in a resolution running past 500 pages. The agency said at the time that the general plan by itself authorises nothing.
In September 2025 ANLA tightened the terms again through Resolution 2257. It added farming zones to the exclusion list and lowered permitted herbicide residues in water.
In December 2025 the agency said no new environmental instrument was needed. It is waiting for a calibration and drift study endorsed by an inter-institutional technical committee.
ANLA authorised ground application of the herbicide back in December 2016. A drone based method also exists, but it needs clearance from the same technical committee.
The coca numbers behind the decision
Coca planting is the reason this question keeps returning to the cabinet table. United Nations monitoring counted 261,000 hectares in Colombia at the end of 2024.
That was a rise of 3.5 percent from 253,000 hectares a year earlier. The figure comes from the survey published in June 2026 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
The same report left out its usual estimate of potential cocaine output. Its authors cited methodological problems identified during technical reviews in April 2026.
Manual eradication has slowed in recent years and remains dangerous for the teams involved. Supporters present aerial glyphosate spraying as the faster instrument available.
Washington, money and the wider strategy
President Abelardo de la Espriella took office on 7 August 2026 promising to restart fumigation. He spoke of last-generation herbicides rather than of glyphosate itself.
The United States Department of State announced a security package worth US$1 billion around the inauguration. That money still requires approval by the United States Congress.
Washington removed Colombia from its list of fully cooperating countries on 15 September 2025. The decertification was the first in about three decades and stung in Bogotá.
Officials have also floated a pilot using glufosinate ammonium in place of glyphosate. No location or start date for that pilot has been made public.
What to watch next
The first measurable signal will come from the environmental regulator rather than the presidency. Any move to lift the 2015 precautionary suspension would be the real trigger.
The second signal is the prior consultation calendar in the departments where coca concentrates. Those processes are slow and are routinely challenged in the courts.
Legal challenges to Resolution 0006 of 2026 are likely from environmental and farming organisations. None had been formally filed when this account was written.
For investors the practical question is timing rather than principle. A first flight under aerial glyphosate spraying could still be months or years away.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Colombia spray coca fields with glyphosate from the air now?
No. Resolution 0006 of 2026 removes the 2015 prohibition, but aerial glyphosate spraying still needs environmental, health and consultation clearances.
What exactly did the government repeal?
It repealed Resolution 6 of 2015 of the National Narcotics Council. That order had suspended spraying nationwide after a World Health Organization cancer classification.
Which court rulings govern any restart?
Sentencia T-236 de 2017 and Sentencia T-413 de 2021 both apply. They require independent risk rules, continuous evaluation, prior consultation and updated evidence.
Sources
- www.eltiempo.com
- www.elcolombiano.com
- www.bluradio.com
- www.infobae.com
- www.cancilleria.gov.co
- www.anla.gov.co
- www.anla.gov.co
- www.minjusticia.gov.co
- www.eltiempo.com
- www.elespectador.com
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