By Mas Por TIC | Project Leader
Hello
How have you been? We hope you are very well.
Thank you for reading our report and thank you for your collaboration, which is what allows us to continue reaching more farmers in the rural areas of Colombia, and continue to meet our goal of "Bringing digital technology to 550 Colombian Farmers"... We hope you continue believing in our purpose and thus being able to reach more farmers in rural areas of Colombia.
As we told you last time, from November to January we were accompanied by Elsa, Lola and Mathieu (volunteers from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands), with them we continued touring rural Colombia so that they could better understand the context in which the farmers carry out their daily activities, last year we were in Santander and Cundinamarca, for this year the route was Boyacá and especially in the province of Sugamuxi.
The purpose of this visit was for Elsa, Lola, Mathieu and the Más por TIC team to test with farmers the digital tool they had been working on these months, which is called “Cultivo Red”.
It was a tour of different municipalities in the department of Boyacá, and also the opportunity to share with farmers of different crops such as bighead onion, long onion, tomato, grape, and seeds such as chia, pumpkin and amaranth, among others.
Being able to share with different farmers allowed our volunteers to better understand the realities, opportunities and difficulties they experience in the agricultural sector. In addition, the comments and contributions that farmers gave to "Cultivo RED" from their vision were very enriching, which left us as a work team with great satisfaction and with the aim of continuing to promote "Cultivo RED", since farmers they see it as an opportunity from planting to harvest and for marketing their products.
One of the farmers who visited is Dario. He has his long onion crop in Laguna de Tota and he told us that almost 90% of the total production of this crop at the National level comes from here, that is why he and his family are looking to improve conditions, not only production but also the people who work with it (Since the entire harvest process must be done manually), which can be an opportunity or also a challenge.
In the same way, we also met Nelly, who together with her sister in the municipality of Tibasosa grows and harvests chia, amaranth, pumpkin, and sunflower seeds, among others. In the talk with Nelly, she allowed us to learn about the difficulties they face when growing these seeds and, above all, how difficult it can be to market their products since they do not have the necessary knowledge to promote their products online. In addition, most of the cultivation is done manually and by hand, always looking for a quality product. They also grow native potatoes, which caught our attention since this is a very scarce variety and they have their origin in the Andes according to history they were found, domesticated and cultivated by the indigenous people. So it is a crop that until now is being given recognition both nationally and internationally.
Another vision was given to us by José, a grower from the municipality of Nobsa, who with his family has sought to modernize tomato cultivation so that its production is cleaner, and so that quality and yield generate greater economic benefits as well as his product to be recognized by Being clean of pesticides, José not only allowed us to see one of his crops but we were also able to taste his tomatoes and we all agreed on how delicious they were.
Both Nelly, Dario and José, told us about the problems they present in marketing and how many of their fellow farmers suffer at the hands of intermediaries, who ultimately are the ones who keep the most resources despite the fact that they are the ones who work. These types of situations, as well as others in terms of planting and yields, are what "Cultivo RED" wants to support.
So this field work allowed us to prototype, test and most importantly interact with farmers, who are our reason for being. We will continue working on the development of this platform to support growers and their families.
For now, we leave you, but in our next report we will tell you more about "Cultivo RED" and other opportunities in a different rural area of Colombian territory, where together with two communities we will work hand in hand so that, based on digital appropriation and productive use of information and communication technologies, their opportunities can grow.
We leave you some images of the moments shared with these very special people. We hope you like them!!!
A big hug,
By Equipo Mas Por TIC | TEAM
By Mas Por TIC | TEAM
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