ForJose A. Cubillos E.
It is well known that the ravages caused by the lockdown crises and the arrival of the pandemic have exacerbated problems as complex as hunger in the population. The loss of jobs, the increase in informality, the increase in the cost of living, the crisis of agricultural inputs and containers in global trade are just some factors that intersect in the national reality. Since 2021, reports from the Colombian Food Bank Association, Andi and even the FAO itself have been disseminated, warning of the food insecurity suffered by Colombia and the food shortage that may occur during 2022.
Probably the most direct examples of food scarcity and its imminent increase in the value of acquisition are currently evident in products as common in the household diet as potatoes, bananas, onions , cassava, beef, chicken, pork and egg. In the case of products such as potatoes and plantains, due to their production costs, a significant percentage of their producers are turning to other agricultural activities —such as livestock, for example—, and although the most optimistic reports predict a decrease in the prices for the entry of crops at the beginning of the second semester of 2022, there is a reality that the Colombian countryside and each territory must attend to sooner rather than later: their self-sufficiency with cultivable products in their own environment.
For a different rural universe
Notes on the disincentive to work in the field
The disincentive that has been caused in the country for agricultural work due to the lack of robust policies in the redistribution of land, in terms of food security and sovereignty , modernization of the countryside and social security for the peasantry, in addition to having a direct effect on peasant life, has caused economic activities other than food production to take root in areas of invaluable agricultural potential: this is the case of the Sabana de Bogotá , where the vast development of flower crops replaced food production and now the wineries are implanted where before it was cultivated.
Today there are few self-sufficient territories in terms of food, there are few territories that cultivate and supply their own population. Due to the territorial configuration, the distribution of the markets and the productive zoning in regional matters, there are few territories with food sovereignty. Starting to address this aspect will not be a short-term task, facing it implies valuing productive land, not extending uncontrolled urbanization, prioritizing rural reforms, dignifying the lives of the peasantry, modernizing the countryside, investing in tertiary roads, establishing fair trade lines and the promotion of peasant cooperatives. Even investing in research, science and technology so that the dependence on agrochemicals required in large crops can be produced by national companies.
The above are ambitious objectives and require the action of government actors at different scales. If the municipal administrations understood the value of the countryside and the promotion of short circuits in food production, they would easily establish, for example, that public school restaurants were mainly supplied with products grown in the same environment. If departmental administrations understood the value of peasant life, they would undertake not only investments in footprint plates, but also investments in education, connectivity and field technification. If a National Government were to measure the historical debt with the peasantry, they would not hesitate to act effectively with the necessary rural reform that the country demands.
Knowing the historical consequences of the logic of government that has taken root in the institutions, it is not surprising today that the result after a crisis is scarcity, and it is not surprising that Colombia wastes its productive potential to be food pantry for itself and the world as emphasized since 2010 by FAO and Expo 2015 Milan "Feeding the planet, energy for life".
March 1, 2022
