Who does the Coca-Cola Company buy the coca plant from?

Question by anarresti: Who does the Coca-Cola Company buy the coca plant from?
From Wikipedia:
«After 1904, instead of using fresh leaves, Coca-Cola started using “spent” leaves—the leftovers of the cocaine-extraction process with cocaine trace levels left over at a molecular level.[29] To this day, Coca-Cola uses as an ingredient a cocaine-free coca leaf extract prepared at a Stepan Company plant in Maywood, New Jersey.

In the United States, Stepan Company is the only manufacturing plant authorized by the Federal Government to import and process the coca plant,[30] which it obtains mainly from Peru and, to a lesser extent, Bolivia. Besides producing the coca flavoring agent for Coca-Cola, Stepan Company extracts cocaine from the coca leaves, which it sells to Mallinckrodt, a St. Louis, Missouri pharmaceutical manufacturer that is the only company in the United States licensed to purify cocaine for medicinal use.»

So, who, in Peru and Bolivia, sells coca to the Coca-Cola Company? The governments? The drug cartels?

I like to drink Coca-Cola, but I will stop immediately if the Company is buying from the cartels. I know that in Peru and other countries, the coca leaves are legal and used widely, being chewed by workers to help them stand the altitude and the humidity. But I think that the buying and selling of the coca plant is very restricted and regulated, so that it is not sold to be processed as cocaine.

So, who does the Coca-Cola Company buy from? Does anyone know?
this is the Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola#Coca_.E2.80.94_Cocaine
Fair Dinkum, is the wiki wrong?

“To this day, Coca-Cola uses as an ingredient a cocaine-free coca leaf extract prepared at a Stepan Company plant in Maywood, New Jersey.

In the United States, Stepan Company is the only manufacturing plant authorized by the Federal Government to import and process the coca plant,[30] which it obtains mainly from Peru and, to a lesser extent, Bolivia.”
and here are the quotes, proving it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola#cite_note-28
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca-Cola#cite_note-29
scobranchi, I am really embarassed 😀

you are absolutelly rigth. and, you know what, I feel even more embarrassed, because I did read that part of the text, the first time. It was when I read the article a second time, that I missed it.

You have the best answer – anyone who come here and gives the same answer, is only repeating what you said.

Best answer:

Answer by Livi
somewhere out of the US

What do you think? Answer below!