Agriculture in Colombia refers to all agricultural activities, essential to food, feed, and fiber production, including all techniques for raising and processing livestock within the Republic of Colombia. Plant cultivation and livestock production have continuously abandoned subsistence agricultural practices in favour of technological farming resulting in cash crops which contribute to the economy of Colombia. The Colombian agricultural production has significant gaps in domestic and/or international human and animal sustenance needs.
The primary agricultural products of Colombia are coffee (the country is the fourth-largest producer of coffee in the world), cut flowers, bananas, rice, tobacco, corn, sugarcane, cocoa beans, oilseed, vegetables, fique, panela, forest products; and shrimp. In Colombia, the agricultural politics and policies are determined by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
The share of agriculture in Colombia's gross domestic product (GDP) has fallen consistently since 1945, as industry and services have expanded. However, Colombia's agricultural share of GDP decreased during the 1990s by less than in many of the world's countries at a similar level of development, even though the share of coffee in GDP diminished in a dramatic way. Agriculture has nevertheless remained an important source of employment, providing a fifth of Colombia's jobs.
History of agriculture in Colombia
Pre-Columbian agriculture
Indigenous peoples in Colombia were the first to process plants and animals to produce food. The indigenous peoples had developed techniques to plant numerous plants for food and to produce houses and ornaments. Predominantly the indigenous people cultivated maize and managed the Colombian climate and geography to develop planting technique using terraces. Many other plants were first cultivated in Colombia such as tomatoes, avocados, guavas, chilli peppers, manioc and prickly pear were all cultivated as additional food resources, while rubber trees and cotton plants were useful for making cultural products like latex balls and clothing.
The indigenous people also were avid hunters and consumed processed local fauna, predominantly deer, rabbits, snails, fish and birds. En Colombia: Historia de los Humedales en Bogota; La Dieta Muisca y los Humedales encolombia.com Accessed 19 September 2007. The indigenous also cultivated grass to use as roofs for their houses, and fique fiber to sew their clothing and artifacts. They also cultivated coca and marijuana for ceremonial purposes and local fruits and vegetables like yuca and potato for their diet.Medical Marijuana on Agricultural Lands Discussion
Spanish conquest and colonization
With the arrival of the Spaniards most of the indigenous peoples plantations were used for the consumption of the Spaniards. The Spaniards then turned to violence, domination and submission of the indigenous peoples, forcing most of them into slavery based in systems like the encomiendas. The indigenous peoples were also forced to work under the Mita in the 16th century by the Spaniards and many illnesses brought by the Spaniards combined with the forced workload eliminated or greatly diminished the indigenous population in most of the country. Workmall: Colombia; The Colonial Economy - Source: The Library of Congress Country Studies workmall.com Accessed 20 September 2007. Monografias: Agricultura y capitalismo en Colombia. La interpretación de las relaciones precapitalistas en las actividades agrícolas (1890–1983) monografias.com Accessed 20 September 2007. The Spanish introduced a variety of European animal and plant species in Colombia intended for the production and later commercialization back to Spain, as the Spanish monarchy had adopted a mercantilist style of commerce. The Spaniards brought new livestock such as horses, cattle, goats, birds, most of these intended for the human consumption and for commerce. It also introduced agricultural plants such as cotton, coffee, sugar cane, tobacco, tea, sorghum, wheat, with the same purpose of supplying Spain solely.
During the Early 17th Century the Meztizaje (mixing of races) forced the Spaniards to adopt a prohibition of forced labor for indigenous peoples created new forms of contracting workers. The land acquired more importance as the Spaniards realized the productivity and commercial advantage of these and they also introduced private property, to own and commercialize land. During the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries the Spaniards changed to latifundios (haciendas like Quinta de San Pedro Alejandrino) and minifundios.
The latifundios were great extensions of land owned by a single or very few owners and workers lived in the hacienda solely for the production of food, while the minifundios were small pieces of land owned by peasants mestizos which overused it and unfertilized these. The indigenous population was forced out from the rural areas and into the urban villages.
Independence
After the independence the criollos in Colombia received the support of the United States and other countries to begin trading as a free nation with other countries under the principles of liberal capitalism, the nation however, struggled socially and politically engulfing in numerous civil wars throughout the 19th Century, leaving the countryside and the agricultural production at the same level the Spanish colonial rule had left it.
Agricultural policy The most relevant policy instrument affecting the recent evolution of the agricultural sector has been the price bands that Andean countries introduced to protect agriculture in the context of the trade-liberalization program of the early 1990s. According to the mechanism, when international prices decrease, import tariffs increase and vice versa. These price-band ranges remain, despite domestic controversy regarding the level of protection that they provide. This is mainly because of pressure from interest groups and because of the difficulties in identifying clearly the impact on international prices of the subsidies and internal supports given to producers in the developed world.Roberto Steiner and Hernán Vallejo. "Agriculture". In Colombia: A Country Study (Rex A. Hudson, ed.). Library of Congress Federal Research Division (2010).
Public policy toward the agricultural sector also has included the establishment of subsidized sources of credit. Since 1990 such mechanisms have included the Fund for the Finance of the Agricultural Sector (Finagro). Other policy instruments have included minimum price guarantees, import quotas, subsidized credits and tax exemptions, campaigns to promote consumption, incentives for new investments and for forestry plantations, and more recent exchange-rate or currency-hedging options.
Production Colombia is one of the 5 largest producers in the world of coffee, avocado and palm oil, and one of the 10 largest producers in the world of sugarcane, banana, pineapple and cocoa.Producción de Colombia en 2018, por la FAO
Colombia produced, in 2018, 36.2 million tons of sugarcane (7th largest producer in the world), 5.8 million tons of palm oil (5th largest producer in the world), 3.7 million tons of banana and 3,5 million tons of plantain (4th largest producer of banana in the world) and 720 thousand tons of coffee (4th largest producer in the world, behind Brazil, Vietnam and Indonesia). Although its neighbor Brazil is the largest producer of coffee in the world (3.5 million tons produced in the same year), the advertising carried out by the country for decades suggests that Colombian coffee is of higher quality, which generates greater added value to the country's product. In the same year, Colombia produced 3.3 million tons of rice, 3.1 million tons of potato, 2.2 million tons of cassava, 1.3 million tons of maize, 900 thousand tons of pineapple, 670 thousand tons of onion, 527 thousand tons of tomato, 419 thousand tons of yam, 338 thousand tons of mango, 326 thousand tons of avocado, in addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products such as orange, tangerine, lemon, papaya, beans, carrot, coconut, watermelon etc.Colombia production in 2018, by FAO
Agricultural products In 2006 Colombia's most important agricultural products were cattle, accounting for 45 percent of agricultural output; coffee, 9.5 percent; fruits, 15.2 percent (including plantains, 5.2 percent; and bananas, 2.8 percent); rice, 4.9 percent; flowers, 4.2 percent; vegetables, 4.1 percent; and other agricultural products, 17.1 percent. This composition has remained basically the same since 1992, except for an increase in the share of cattle and fruits, and a decrease in the share of coffee.
Cattle Cattle raising is the most widespread agricultural activity in Colombia, accounting for 74 percent of Colombia's agricultural land in 2005.
Nevertheless, cattle traditionally were not a particularly important or consistent net export for Colombia, and coffee's dominance within the country's agricultural exports remains largely unchallenged, although cattle is needed for milk.
Perhaps the most significant sectoral change in modern times was the creation of the National Livestock Fund (Federación Nacional de Ganaderos, or Fedegán) in 1993, administered by the Association of Colombian Stockbreeders (Federación Nacional de Ganaderos, or Fedegan). That fund has generated resources to tackle five major issues: sanitation, commercialization, research and development (R&D), training, and promotion of consumption. Although progress has been made on all five fronts, perhaps the most remarkable achievements have occurred in sanitation. A national program of vaccination against foot-and-mouth disease began in 1997. In 2009 the World Organisation for Animal Health declared the country free of foot-and-mouth disease by vaccination. Significant progress also has been made in vaccination for brucellosis. These sanitation achievements are of major importance in increasing market access for Colombia's cattle exports.
Coffee
Coffee historically has been a major factor in the Colombian economy. Although Brazil became the dominant force in coffee production and trade when the crop was introduced to South America in the eighteenth century, the uniquely rich flavor of the coffee from Colombia's newly cultivated highland regions led to its becoming a major Colombian export in the late nineteenth century. By the 1920s, coffee made up 70 percent of total exports.
At its outset, the production of coffee held much promise for the nation's economy. It incentivized the development of infrastructure, fueling the construction of roads connecting areas of cultivation to the distant coasts, as well as a railway system. The United States quickly became the primary consumer of Colombian coffee. Furthermore, the cultivation of coffee on smaller-scale farms allowed for the growth of a robust middle class composed largely of local producers. However, the rise of larger multinational corporations such as the United Fruit Company in the twentieth century proved difficult to compete with.
Since the middle of the twentieth century, however, its relative importance has been decreasing, largely as a natural outcome of the country's development process. The increase in the share of the services sector, as the nation has developed, corresponded to the reduction of coffee in both GDP and exports. Whereas in 1985 coffee exports represented 51 percent of total exports in value terms, they represented less than 6 percent in 2006. However, the relative decline in coffee's share of both GDP and exports should not imply that coffee has ceased to be a determining factor both in economic and social terms. The livelihoods of an estimated 566,000 families, some 2.3 million Colombians, depend entirely on coffee.