“Peasant history and culture help us understand the origin of the armed conflict in Colombia and, in general, of the history of the 20th century, which had rural-urban migration as one of the main problems.”
El Diario spoke with the Secretary of Agricultural Development of the Department of Risaralda, Juan Carlos Toro Castellanos, and shared valuable data on the current state of the peasantry in our region.
RURAL DEPARTMENT
80% is made up of the agricultural sector, with 145,000 productive hectares, where coffee, bananas, cocoa, sugar cane and avocado are part of the five main crops in this department.
Understanding that coffee is the main driver of the rural economy, last year the coffee harvest was worth close to 800 billion pesos.
It also finds important export products such as avocado that is exported to different countries around the world, organic panela that is taken from the Municipality of Quinchía and goes to Italy, where about 30 tons are sent monthly.
FOR THE PEASANTS
From the departmental Department of Agricultural Development, various services are provided, such as agricultural inspection visits with professionals such as agronomists, veterinarians, zootechnicians, environmental engineers, and other commercial, financial, accountant, and lawyer profiles.
The purpose of this multidisciplinary team is to provide the technical advice that each one of the producers or legally constituted organizations may need. Other services are the delivery of machinery and supplies, winter wave aid, in terms of coffee aid, the secretariat has delivered toasters, implements to strengthen laboratories.
A plant is being built for plantain growers in the La Marina sector, benefiting the western sector.
In the rural sector there are a little more than 200 thousand people who live in the 14 municipalities of the department.
PEASANTS TALK
Fernando Mendoza, is a farmer who lives with his wife and five children in the corregimiento of La Florida, in his house he has a piece of land that he also works with his hands. Don Fernando wakes up at six in the morning, feeds his animals and fulfills the duties of the house, then he goes to his workplace where he works by percentage, he does his work until it rains, then he must go to save himself from the water, when the firmament reopens, he returns to continue working on the cultivation of onion, coriander, beans and stuffed cucumber.
In Florida he has a sale of his products, it is good for him because he does not have intermediaries, although the economy for him and his family is not easy, in fact, he has land available to plant, but he does not have the resources for it. first planting, made a request 20 days ago to Banco Agrario, but has not received a response.
“We need money to be able to work, because at this moment what the land is producing is not enough to support oneself, nor to buy fertilizer, nor seeds.”
The only stable help she has is the sale of her crops on Sundays and holidays. The money she collects is used to pay debts and buy food, but it is not enough.
SEEDS AND FERTILIZER
Most of the seeds that peasants buy are transgenic and for this reason they must use the entire line of fertilizing and fertilizer products that increase in value day by day, affecting the economy of the Risaraldense peasant.
A couple of months ago a pound of seeds was worth 22,000 pesos and at this moment it is worth 35,000 pesos. One option that farmers have to face the high cost of transgenic seeds is to buy seedlings, that plant that is in its first development studies.
PEASANT WOMAN
Olga Lucia Alba Lancheros, is a peasant woman who lives in the corregimiento of La Florida, regarding the life of the rural woman.
“A woman who lives in the countryside must get up early at 5:00 in the morning to do the chores to send the children and husband away with breakfast and lunch, and then cook food to take the husband to the place where he works, he is a farmer, when he returns home he continues to do household chores… one entertains himself with the garden, although there is much to do at home”, dice.