Santander Tastes Like Coffee

Santander is the sixth largest department in area and production at the national level. 
The first 10 departments with the greatest aptitude and production of coffee, at the national level, are: Huila, Antioquia, Tolima, Cauca, Caldas, Santander, Valle del Cauca, Risaralda, Nariño, and Cundinamarca. 
 
Socorro, Santander. (@UPRAColombia, @claudialili76). Colombia has over 6.2 million hectares suitable for coffee cultivation, accounting for 5.4% of the national area; of which, 55,300 hectares are located in 74 municipalities in Santander. A department characterized by having one of the youngest and most productive coffee cultures in the country. 
 
"We carry out a collaborative work with coffee farmers in Socorro, in the Cost Survey Workshop, productivities, and prices for the financial evaluation of coffee cultivation. An exercise aimed at concretizing information on the production process of coffee - from land preparation for planting to grain commercialization - a basic input to disseminate information to coffee-producing municipalities in the department of Santander and obtain important financial indicators, such as the internal rate of return (IRR), the cost-benefit ratio, net present value, payback period, among others", explained the director of UPRA, Claudia Liliana Cortés López. 
 
For her part, the Minister of Agriculture, Jhenifer Mojica, stated: "We have reiterated the commitment of the Government of Change to Colombian coffee. We have managed to demonstrate that we are advancing actions and investments in renewal, in fostering productive projects, in the recovery of associativity and cooperativism, in a subsidized financing policy, in which we have managed to irrigate three trillion pesos in this Government in favor of small and medium coffee growers." 
 
Santander has around 33,600 coffee-growing families located in nearly 38,000 farms generating more than 42,000 direct jobs in rural areas. Coffee represents 23% of the department's agricultural production, making it the most exported product in the agricultural sector in the department. 
 
In conclusion, David González, UPRA expert, stated: "This exercise also progresses in the leading departments of national production such as Huila, Caldas, Cauca, Antioquia, and Tolima. In Socorro, we have the participation of ten small and medium coffee producers, the Coffee Committee of Socorro, the Santander Coffee Cooperative, COOPSANTANDER, and the Agriculture Secretariat of Socorro." 
 
The exercise aims to gather primary information in each leading municipality and perform financial and spatial analysis as an indispensable component in the decision-making of producers and sectoral agricultural policy guidelines. 
 ​​
Thus, financial analysis based on production costs is a useful technique for evaluating the convenience of investments in the face of various production alternatives, providing the producer with tools and criteria to define cost patterns, project income, adjust projections for changes in any of the variables, and calculate profitability indicators that allow, as mentioned earlier, making informed decisions. 
 

Socorro has 4,452 hectares of coffee crops distributed among 1,164 coffee producers, in 1,575 farms, with an average of 3.8 hectares and mainly Castillo, Colombia, and Cenicafe varieties. 

 
The Ministry of Agriculture and UPRA invite coffee farmers to the next workshop, which will be held in the municipality of Andes, Antioquia, in June.