Peasant farmers’ markets in Colombia

Since the late 1940s Colombia has had a long string of what may arguably be the most anti-peasant governments in the world. Between the army, paramilitary death squads, armed drug traffickers, and the cross-fire between the various guerilla movements and government forces, several hundred thousand peasant farmers have been killed. Decades of anti-communist government propaganda have led city dwellers to virtually equate the word “campesino” (peasant farmer) with “subversive,” in a climate where the extra-judicial killing of subversives is “normal.”

How then did Colombian peasant organisations – some of whom are members of La Via Campesina, and others that are allies – together with nuns who promote ecological farming, and academic researchers in the city, win a very good public policy in the capital of Bogotá to promote peasant farmers’ markets?

In the mid-2000s, the mayor’s office wanted to restructure the distribution of fresh produce in the capital by creating a series of transfer point markets between rural agribusiness and giant super-market chains. By 2010, some 2,500 peasant families were doing more than USD 2 million in annual business.

Today the peasant markets in Bogotá are contributing mightily to food sovereignty, providing peasants from four provinces with a very profitable market option, have given political training that is dynamising the struggle for food sovereignty policies in home municipalities, are changing Society’s perception of peasants in a very positive way, and are using a gentle touch to promote the transition to agroecology.

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Peasant markets in Bogotá are contributing mightily to food sovereignty, providing peasants from four provinces with a very profitable market option