Few legal crops flourish in Putumayo, which is remote and has poor soils.
With that in mind, 489 Putumayo farmers in August signed an agreement to eradicate their coca fields by hand.
FARC-held areas of Caqueta and Putumayo, thus, it is hoped, cutting the guerrillas' income, and encouraging them to seek peace.
Ecuador's government, for its part, fears that the displaced, and the war, may flood over its largely unguarded border with Putumayo.
ECONOMIST: Putumayo��s tense wait for the arrival of Plan Colombia
One of the units is the 24th Brigade, based in Putumayo department, where separate American-trained battalions are supporting a coca-eradication campaign.
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Officials say that the plan is to provide alternatives in other areas for the farmers and labourers displaced from Putumayo's coca industry.
ECONOMIST: Putumayo��s tense wait for the arrival of Plan Colombia
In Colombia, the government in February halted aerial spraying in the southern province of Putumayo, where almost half of the country's coca crop is grown.
But much of the rest is to set up a new army anti-drugs brigade to operate in Caqueta and neighbouring Putumayo, the site of most of Colombia's 120, 000 hectares (296, 000 acres) of coca.
All this, however, is a completely new experience for the members of this semi-nomadic community of hunters and gatherers who live scattered across the provinces of Narino and Putumayo and in the neighbouring mountains of Ecuador.
Based at Tres Esquinas, 145 kilometres (90 miles) from Puerto Asis, the prime task of these battalions, officials say, is to secure Putumayo, to enable police to attack its drug-processing laboratories and intensify their efforts to wipe out its coca plantations by spraying them with herbicides.
ECONOMIST: Putumayo��s tense wait for the arrival of Plan Colombia
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