By Jeremy McDermott BBC correspondent in Bogota

The Colombian Government has come up with a plan to raise money, hit drug traffickers and launch land reform - all by seizing the vast estates of drug lords.

President Alvaro Uribe could boost reform plans - if he had the money

It could be the answer to the prayers of President Alvaro Uribe, whose government is desperate for cash and trying to reconquer the half of the country dominated by Marxist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug barons.

In his sights is more than a million hectares of prime agricultural land and a vast array of houses and assets.

He just has to get his hands on them legally.

The Minister of Agriculture, Carlos Gustavo Cano, announced that the government was seeking to seize all this wealth, which he insists is the result of drugs trafficking and is estimated to be worth well in excess of $1bn.

But the only way to do this is to modify the existing law, which shrewd lawyers employed by drugs traffickers have used to hold up and even reverse expropriation orders.

Emergency powers

At the moment, the state must allow at least two years for the owners of threatened assets or their families to challenge expropriation orders.

Land redistribution could be started to meet peasants' demands

The government, using the powers it has granted itself under a limited state of emergency, wants to change that to just three months.

The plan is not just to sell these assets, although cash is desperately needed to balance the books, alleviate the country's massive debt burden and fund President Uribe's unprecedented security build-up.

The estates could also be used for land redistribution, addressing one of the fundamental demands of Colombia's peasants and one of the reasons the Marxist guerrillas continue their 38-year war to overthrow the state.

The Colombian president has said that the current situation of emergency demands emergency measures and he plans to get his hands on some of the billions of dollars the drug barons earn every year.