It's time to deliver on our promise to the Colombian countryside

The country’s priorities in recent decades have centered on peace, in the hope that achieving it would spur development and growth, thereby making the country attractive to investment and fostering social prosperity. In the end, over time, the envisioned goals have not been achieved, leaving the country with a process of violence that has become endemic, coupled with a weakening state capacity to enforce the most basic tenets of society enshrined in its Constitution.

Despite this, the rural sector has had to adapt to this reality; it has an export portfolio of agricultural products that has changed little over the past four decades: coffee, bananas, flowers, palm oil, sugar derivatives, with minor increases in beef and avocados. With competitive shortcomings and high opportunity costs due to the failure to develop production models that take advantage of our territory’s comparative advantages.

When comparing the figures for the agricultural sector in Colombia, Peru, and Chile, we find that Colombia leads with over US$15 billion, Peru with US$12.8 billion, and Chile with US$ 12.4 billion. These figures create a false perception of development, given that, while in our country the sector is driven by traditional products, in the other countries, their portfolio is broader, with a greater socioeconomic impact.

With the development of food markets, both domestically and internationally, we must modernize the Colombian agricultural sector, transforming it into an attractive hub for investment with the participation of small, medium, and large producers, leveraging the competitive advantages of all stakeholders through investments in technology and logistics.

It is time to make up for decades of lost development; it is time to promote a model that delivers short-term results while building for the long term. Those responsible for developing public policies, from the Congress of the Republic to the next government, must prioritize the agricultural sector, where, while addressing basic prerequisites such as legal certainty regarding property rights, security in rural areas, and the development of basic infrastructure for secondary roads, a platform is built to generate added value for the agricultural sector.

In this context, the experiences of countries such as Chile and Peru are relevant for leveraging the strengths of all development actors, through an inclusive model starting with small and medium-sized farmers and producers, utilizing value chains to serve the domestic market and, why not, the export market as well.

An agro-industrial model featuring large agricultural export companies and domestic market operators, working in coordination with small and medium-sized producers integrated into value chains, with a focus on non-traditional products and those with environmental benefits. An approach centered on contract farming, where companies provide the technology, technical assistance, seeds, seedlings, or genetic material, and financing, thereby guaranteeing income for producers and shielding them from market risks. At the same time, companies manage processing, local or national marketing networks, packaging, logistics, certification processes, and the cost of formalization, among other aspects.

Not to mention that Colombia is a food-importing country, with imports potentially exceeding US$10 billion annually, of which 1 out of every 7 dollars spent on imports goes toward food—a high proportion for an agricultural country.

This reflects a missed opportunity for the country, one that can be recovered through processes of competitive import substitution, which, while reducing the volume of imports, positions us for export.

The concept of these models is not new; however, there is a lack of structured partnerships between farmers/producers, companies, and the government. Here, we need a government that supports these processes from start to finish, working with the ICA, INVIMA, and the ministries of Environment, Agriculture, Finance, and Transportation, among others.

We need to attract capital and knowledge to the agricultural sector, while ensuring that productive partnerships can operate effectively through certifications, tax incentives, and efficient implementation of phytosanitary strategies. This begins with the development of a regulatory framework that enables and consolidates these efforts over time.