LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - Police have destroyed at least 60 laboratories used to process illegal drugs in the Peruvian jungle and burned 38 tons of coca leaf, the raw material for cocaine, a spokesman said on Thursday.

"In the last two months, we have intensified operations after intelligence reports alerted us that drug traffickers have been more active," a police spokesman, requesting anonymity, told Reuters.

"Some 38 tons of coca leaf were burned and at least 61 rustic drug laboratories were destroyed, but there could be more," the spokesman said. He added no arrests were made because people on the farms where the labs were found fled when police arrived.

Peru is the world's second-biggest cocaine producer, trailing only northern neighbor Colombia in output of the pricey drug. This Andean nation earned international praise in the 1990s for cracking down on drug production, but officials in Lima warn that output is back on the rise.

The police spokesman said authorities were worried because small-time farmers were not only cultivating coca leaf and handing it over to drug cartels to be made into cocaine, but they were also processing the leaf to make crude, less pure cocaine paste themselves.

Cocaine paste, which can be consumed as a drug, is an intermediary product between coca leaf and refined cocaine. According to Peru's anti-drug police task force, 2.2 pounds of cocaine sells for $15,000 to $20,00 on the streets of the United States and up to $25,000 in Europe.

"The operations were carried out quickly to avoid conflicts with farmers," the police spokesman said.

Some farmers -- strapped to scrape by with unprofitable traditional crops like yucca and coffee -- have protested, lobbying for the government to allow legal coca crops.

A small quantity of coca leaf is grown legally in Peru and used for medicinal and traditional cultural purposes.

The government of President Alejandro Toledo says it will work to stamp out illegal crops with manual eradication and alternative crop programs.

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