PRESS ROOM
13/3/2024
UPRA socialized with the new local administrations of nine municipalities in La Guajira the Protection Areas for Food Production.
San Juan del Cesar, El Molino, Villanueva, Urumita, La Jagua del Pilar, Distracción, Fonseca, Barrancas, and Hatonuevo are the municipalities where the socialization took place.
Bogotá D. C., (@UPRAColombia, @claudialili76). The Unit of Rural Agricultural Planning (UPRA) resumed, in nine municipalities in the south of La Guajira, the exercise of identifying the Protection Areas for Food Production (APPA) that began in 2023.
Dora Inés Rey Martínez, Technical Director of Social Property Ordering and Rural Land Market at UPRA, stated: "In this process, we had the opportunity to explain to the different technical teams of the municipalities what APPA are, the importance of declaring these areas as a determinant of higher hierarchy in territorial planning, the impact it will have on the territory in terms of rural development and the protection of these soils for food security and the human right to food."
On one hand, a technical team from UPRA toured the municipalities of San Juan del Cesar, El Molino, Villanueva, Urumita, and La Jagua del Pilar, where progress in the APPA for each municipality was presented.
Another technical team was in the other municipalities (Distracción, Fonseca, Barrancas, and Hatonuevo), detailing the progress of the APPA with the mayors, agriculture secretaries, planning secretaries, and other officials.
Hassan David Palmezano Romero, mayor of Hatonuevo (La Guajira), commented on the exercise: "We had a very beneficial space with UPRA, where we learned about the impact, scope, and benefits that our municipality will have with the Protection Areas for Food Production. We learned that there will be areas added later in processes that will continue. Hatonuevo is one of the municipalities with the highest agricultural production in the department of La Guajira, for internal consumption and also for neighboring departments and territories."
Arnaldo Brito, mayor of Distracción, also expressed his interest: "I celebrate that this initiative has reached our municipality and that we can make the best use of it to improve the quality of life of our agricultural producers. Distracción is an agricultural municipality par excellence. For over 100 years we have produced rice, oil palm, cotton, and crops."
Finally, it is expected that in the first or second week of April, UPRA will return to the nine municipalities of La Guajira to show the results of the identification of the APPA to present them to the municipalities and the community.
UPRA supports Territorial Planning Plans
Apart from presenting the progress of the APPA, UPRA took the opportunity to present the mission of the entity and to make known the Agricultural Territorial Kit, which is a series of guidelines aimed at strengthening the agricultural sector policy in the Territorial Development Plans of the new administrations 2024-2027.
Access the Territorial Kit here.
There you will find an explanatory video and three sections, which are: Sectoral guidelines for agriculture, information by departments, and help guides.
It is worth mentioning that the Agricultural Territorial Kit is an initiative of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, with the technical support of UPRA, to support departments, municipalities, and districts.
