“Horticultural Association of Colombia Empowers Farmers to Produce Inputs: An Initiative to Reduce Costs and Benefit Consumers.”

To counteract the high investment costs in agro-inputs, necessary for cultivation, in Santander, The Horticultural Association of Colombia is carrying out a project in which 550 already participate producers of

Fruits and vegetables who are preparing, on their own farms, all the inputs for planting.

The initiative seeks sell at a lower price, thus benefiting the farmers and the final consumer that you will be able to get the cheapest food from the countryside.

“What we are looking for in a profitable production for the producer and beneficial for the buyer and what we do is that those agroinputs such as fertilizers, fungicides, insecticides that raised costs to 200% and 300% are made on the farms. So a liter of poison, an insecticide that may be worth between $100,000 and $150,000 can be made on the farm at a cost of $2,000”, explained Sergio Correa, manager of Asohofrucol in Santander.

Of the producers participating in the project in the 87 municipalities of Santander, several already have biofactories on their farms and they are developing the products to achieve a production at a lower cost.

“There are many ways to make biopreparations. The most necessary inputs are minerals, so sulfates are bought and prepared in cans, for example, 200 liters or 50 liters, the dose that I need for my crop. To protect the crop from pests and diseases, I also have mushrooms that I collect in the forest, propagate them on my farm, apply them to my crop and, therefore, those fungi that are there in the forest act as phytoprotectorsCorrea explained.

The artisanal production of inputs, According to the representative of the sector, they are ancestral knowledge applied to the present that are reducing production costs by more than 30%.

“We are applying it to citrus crops where we had a production cost per hectare of $6 to $7 million and at the moment we are around $3 million. We have blackberry growers that reduced costs by 30%“, he pointed.

In Santander there are around 14,000 fruit and vegetable producersis the first producer department of Organic Tahiti lime in the international market and the second producer of vegetables in the country, supplying departments such as Cundinamarca, Antioquia and Valle del Cauca.

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