Municipalities of Tocancipá, Gachancipá, and Cajicá were briefed on the progress of identifying APPA

The APPA are identified by UPRA and must be within the national agricultural frontier.

Bogotá D. C., (@UPRAColombia, @claudialili76). With the aim of protecting and preventing the loss of rural soils, and ensuring the human right to adequate food nationwide, the Rural Agricultural Planning Unit (UPRA) is working on identifying Areas of Protection for Food Production (APPA) in the country; specifically, in some municipalities of La Guajira and Cundinamarca. 

In the case of Cundinamarca, UPRA resumed the process of identifying APPA that began in the second semester of 2023 in conjunction with the municipalities of Cogua, Gachancipá, Tocancipá, Cota, Cajicá, and others. 

During meetings held in the third week of March this year, the Unit explained to the new local administrations the work carried out with the previous mayors, agricultural secretaries, planning secretaries, and other officials from the municipalities. 

Dora Inés Rey Martínez, Technical Director of Social Property Management and Rural Land Market at UPRA, stated: "At this moment, we are in the phase of identifying Areas of Protection for Food Production." 

Currently, no territory or area has been declared as an APPA; furthermore, the declaration is a task that is part of the functions of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. 

In the municipality of Tocancipá, during the socialization, the Secretary of Environment, Juan Pablo Díaz Lazar; the Secretary of Economic Development, Ronny Ramírez; the Secretary of Planning, Marcela Santos, among other officials, were present. 

Ronny Ramírez commented: "All the tools that are being provided to us are excellent for municipalities to plan and organize their territories." 

In Cajicá, various secretaries of the Mayor's Office participated. There, Hernán Darío Gracia, Director of Territorial Development of Cajicá, stated that "within the municipality of Cajicá, although we have rural areas, we have records that are developed by 420 farmers; therefore, initially, we would focus on working with them and on how, from the municipality, to generate guarantees for them and other people who want to join these strategies that will ensure the food security of our region." 

In the socialization meeting in Gachancipá, the mayor of the municipality, Alfonso López Sánchez, was present. 

Finally, the steps to be taken by UPRA are to work on the technical information provided by the municipalities, work hand in hand with each of the secretariats in order to achieve results in the identification of APPA.