Political: In Colombia the panela business helps more than 7000 families in the Colombian Andes,

also directly involves 350000 workers, since owners and workers.

In Colombia has been giving support to the sector of the panela by PAMEDER and its objective is
the business association, help the peasants and increase productivity.

A strategic plan was made, divided into 3 parts:

The first one was the development of clean technologies that is based on good agricultural
practices and reduce the consumption of firewood.

The second part is the improvement of the quality, the presentation of the product, throught the
use of thecnology.

There are also prison sentences for people who change the characteristics of the panela,
sentences ranging from 4 years to 12 years.

The third part is not based of the panela.

El costo de produccin de panela es ligeramente menor en Cundinamarca respecto a la HRS

debido principalmente a la mejor eficiencia en el transporte de la caa y a que la remuneracin del
trabajo en el proceso es relativamente menor en Cundinamarca. En Cauca el costo de produccin
es ms alto debido a la pequea escala productiva y a la baja introduccin de tecnologa, sin
embargo, la panela caucana logra competir por tener incorporada una alta proporcin de mano de
obra familiar no remunerada y porque recibe unos mejores precios en el mercado. Se ha
observado que los precios tradicionalmente son similares en los mercados de HRS y Cundinamarca
y notoriamente superiores en Cauca, y en general en la regin occidental del pas, donde se
presentan menores niveles de produccin y mayores niveles de consumo per capita de panela