After Years Of Violence, Chef Offers Colombian Farmers Pride And Profit
A food activist aims to show the value of traditional agriculture to rural, mainly indigenous people and transform the way they plant, sell and prepare their goods — as well as capture the global eye.
On small peasant farms across Colombia, panela, or unrefined whole cane sugar, is grown, picked and processed entirely by hand. It constitutes the basic economy for hundreds of municipalities, and is second only to coffee in the number of people engaged in its production.
Yet in the country's central Cundinamarca region, between Bogotá and Medellín, it was not until the summer of 2017 that became more than a subsistence crop, and displaced family farmers — mostly women — began to profit from it. The change? Their had become part of an attractively packaged, refreshing lemon-accented soda called Quamba, which is sold in upscale restaurants in Bogotá and other big Colombian cities.
