La Ligua Valley
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| La Ligua Valley | |
|---|---|
| Valle de La Ligua | |
| ActiveGrown here in 2000 or later | |
| |
| The town of Petorca in the valley of the Petorca River | |
| Geography | |
| Country | Chile |
| Province/State | Valparaíso Region |
| Coordinates | -32.34, -71.01 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 4,600 km² |
| Terrain | Valleys and ravines of the Ligua and Petorca rivers and the coast between Zapallar and Los Molles; approximately the five communes of Petorca Province (La Ligua, Cabildo, Petorca, Papudo and Zapallar) |
| Growing history | |
| Earlier names | Valle de la Ligua |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 0 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
La Ligua Valley is a cannabis growing area in the Valparaíso Region of Chile, on the La Ligua and Petorca rivers, around the town of La Ligua. In the 17th century the valley grew cáñamo (hemp) for cordage: the Carmelite friar Antonio Vázquez de Espinosa wrote in 1628–29 that "En el valle de la Ligua se siembra, y coge cantidad de Cañamo" (in the valley of La Ligua a quantity of hemp is sown and harvested).[1] From 2018 to 2025 the police reported seizing or destroying cannabis plantations at Cabildo, Petorca, Longotoma, Papudo, La Ligua and Los Molles.[2][3][4]
Geography
The area is mapped on Petorca Province, whose five communes are La Ligua, Cabildo and Petorca inland and Papudo and Zapallar on the coast. To the south it meets the Aconcagua Valley. The plantations the police reported lay in ravines and on farmland. The crop found near Papudo and La Ligua in 2020 was hidden inside a field of maize,[3] and the plots found in the Quebrada Los Coiles in 2025 were in a place hard to reach, about 25 kilometres towards the mountains.[4]
Colonial hemp
In February 1627 Governor Luis Fernández de Córdoba y Arce, answering a royal enquiry of 1626, reported that hemp was grown in the valleys of Quillota and La Ligua and that the yearly harvest came to about 8,000 quintales.[5]: 12 The naturalist Claudio Gay, writing in 1865, gave the same figure for the answer to the 1626 enquiry: "los solos valles de Quillota y de la Ligua daban 8,000 qq. al año" (the valleys of Quillota and La Ligua alone gave 8,000 quintales a year).[6]: 132
The historian Mario Góngora traced landholders of La Ligua in the cordage trade of the 17th century. Nicolás de Maluenda, who held land in La Ligua, sent cordage to Lima to be sold. Another holder of an encomienda, with Indigenous people at Valle Hermoso in La Ligua, sold cordage and in 1655 contracted to supply the army with 41 quintales of cord for arquebuses and muskets.[7]: 144, 162 In 1644 Martín de Espinosa y Santander proposed to the Crown that the estate owners from La Ligua to Colchagua should grow hemp and make cordage for export to Spain. His prorrata assigned 300 quintales of cordage to each of four estate owners of La Ligua and 250 to each of three more.[7]: 214–216 The scheme was not carried out.[5]: 14
Police operations, 2018–2025
In February 2018 the anti-narcotics brigade of the Investigations Police (PDI) at Los Andes seized 5,377 cannabis plants. Its officers found them from a helicopter, in the PDI's Plan Cannabis 2018, after analysing sectors of Los Andes, Cabildo, Longotoma and Petorca, among them the Quebrada Las Compuertas, the Quebrada Ossandón and the Quebrada del Agua. The PDI said that the plantations were in places hard to reach.[2]
In February 2020 PDI officers from La Ligua and San Felipe seized more than 3,640 cannabis plants that had been hidden in a maize field, and arrested two men and a woman. The operation took place in the communes of Papudo and La Ligua, and the plants were burnt afterwards.[3] In March 2021 the same brigade of Los Andes seized 28,848 cannabis plants in operations in Petorca Province between 16 and 19 March.[8]
In February 2025 the drugs section (OS-7) of the Carabineros, with the force's special operations group from Valparaíso, found six artisanal plots of growing cannabis in the Quebrada Los Coiles, in the Los Molles sector of La Ligua. The plots were watered from two irrigation pools with motor pumps. The Carabineros destroyed the 3,187 plants on the spot.[4] In a case reported in April 2025, under their cannabis plan for the 2024–25 season, the Carabineros found a plantation in the ravine of El Fraile, also in the Los Molles sector, and seized 23.7 kilograms of loose cannabis and 32.2 kilograms more that was drying.[9]
Accessions
No accessions documented yet.
Recent news
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See also
References
- ↑ Vázquez de Espinosa, A. (1948). Compendio y descripción de las Indias Occidentales. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections (in español). Vol. 108. Transcribed by C.U. Clark. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. pp. 677, 680.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "PDI incauta más de 5 mil plantas de marihuana en Los Andes". Radio Agricultura (in español). 2 February 2018. Retrieved 29 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Plaza, F. (15 February 2020). "Descubren 3.640 plantas de marihuana escondidas entre los choclos en La Ligua". Radio Agricultura (in español). ATON Chile. Retrieved 29 October 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Carabineros incauta más de 3 mil plantas de marihuana en Los Molles". T13 (in español). 5 February 2025. Retrieved 29 October 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Díaz-Ordóñez, M.; Rodríguez Hernández, A.J. (2017). "Cannabis sativa y Chile (1577–1700): un insumo al servicio del Imperio". TEMPUS Revista en Historia General (in español) (6): 1–21. doi:10.17533/udea.tempus.n6a01.
- ↑ Gay, C. (1865). Historia física y política de Chile: Agricultura (in español). Vol. 2. Paris: En casa del autor – via Memoria Chilena.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Góngora, M. (1970). Encomenderos y estancieros: estudios acerca de la constitución social aristocrática de Chile después de la conquista, 1580–1660 (in español). Santiago: Universidad de Chile, Sede Valparaíso – via Memoria Chilena.
- ↑ "PDI incauta más de 28 mil plantas de cannabis sativa en operativos en Petorca". Radio Agricultura (in español). Agencia Uno. 22 March 2021. Retrieved 29 October 2026.
- ↑ Salgado, D. (24 April 2025). "Descubren plantación ilegal de marihuana en sector rural de La Ligua: droga se avaluó en $400 millones". BioBioChile (in español). Retrieved 29 October 2026.