He Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development activated the process of public purchases that will favor small producers and family, peasant and community agriculture. This strategy will create direct marketing channels for agricultural associations so that their products are purchased by national entities.
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During the installation of the first technical table of this program, Minister Cecilia López Montaño highlighted that 85% of Colombian food production comes from small producers, so the offer is guaranteed to consolidate the government’s commitment so that the country be food secure.
“You have to create marketing mechanisms so that these products reach Colombians. In a pandemic, the producers created these channels and they fulfilled the country, but later that dynamic was reduced. For this reason, this public procurement strategy is of transcendental importance”explained the minister.
He added that “Public purchases can reach up to eight trillion pesos a year. A sector that constantly complains that there is no marketing to guarantee that all this effort translates into reaching demand and earning income, today it is beginning to materialize”.
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The public procurement program, whose law was approved two years ago but never implemented, seeks national entities such as the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, Inpec and the Military Forcesdirectly acquire products from the Colombian countryside.
“We are designing a work plan so that we can encourage supply and stimulate the market. This is the best way to reduce the inflation trend”, said the minister when reiterating that an adjustment was made in the categorization of small producers and now those whose annual income does not exceed 50 million pesos are part of this group.
In this regard, he stressed that “This gives us another approach, because now these small producers can access institutional credit and do not have to resort to informal or other loans.”
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For his part, Diego Bautista, president of the Rural Development Agency, pointed out during the installation of the table that “We need to improve the information system, the single registry of producers, we need to identify who our small producers are, who our peasant, family and community agriculture producers are, we are going to see in each department what the purchases are, what is being bought , what is being demanded, we need to know who is producing it”.
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