SINAHOTA, Bolivia - Soaring food prices may achieve what the United States has spent millions of dollars trying to do: persuade Bolivian farmers to sow their fields with less potent crops than cocaine's raw ingredient.
The unlikely advocate for change is Bolivian President Evo Morales, who as leader of a powerful coca growers union fought U.S. crop-substitution programs for two decades.
But rising grain prices and food shortages have made him reconsider. He's now asking coca farmers to supplement their crops with rice and corn as a way of holding down coca production while helping to feed South America's poorest country.
U.S. programs have often banned the planting of coca