Catatumbo producers strengthen their cacao knowledge with AGROSAVIA

• Through a technical tour or visit, agricultural producers from the municipalities of Ocaña, San Calixto, and Hacarí in Norte de Santander visited the facilities of the La Suiza Research Center located in Rionegro, Santander, to gain knowledge about this crop.

 

Bucaramanga, Santander. May 30, 2025. Intending to strengthen the region's technical capacities, nearly 50 farmers from the Catatumbo region spent two days learning about the latest advances in agricultural research applicable to their farms for cacao cultivation in Colombia.

The visit, led by researchers from AGROSAVIA's La Suiza Research Center, covered topics such as:

• Genetic resources management from germplasm banks.
• AGROSAVIA's varieties and plant material production.
• Nutrition and fertilization.
• Cacao Agroforestry Systems (CAS).
• Pruning and grafting.
• Integrated Pest and Disease Management (IPDM).
• Cacao production costs.
• Climate change in cacao cultivation.
• Cacao postharvest and processing into chocolate.

Felipe Montealegre, lead researcher of the Catatumbo Territorial Innovation Systems (TIS) project, explained that "To consolidate territorial innovation systems in the region, joint actions with communities are essential to promote technological linkages, such as, in this case, innovation in Agroforestry Systems with Cacao." He added that to achieve this, training sessions are held to lead the way for cacao from this region of the country to be recognized nationally and internationally.

Likewise, PhD Researcher René Carreño explained that through the project "Improving Environmental Sustainability through the Implementation of Technologies within the Framework of the National Strategy for Cacao Cultivation," financed with resources from Fondo Portugal [Portugal Fund], the impact of the developed technologies "is represented in the standardization of the cacao fermentation process, mainly through automated or controlled temperature ramps."

He added that this project, focused on communities living in hard-to-reach areas, has developed energy-sustainable modular mobile technologies to achieve high-quality standards in the final product. This contributes to the development of communities that have access to technology and can produce value-added food.

Yorfan Sanjuan, a beneficiary of the TIS project from the municipality of Hacarí, expressed his satisfaction by deepening his knowledge during this visit on topics such as nutrition and fertilization processes and expressed his particular interest in learning more about the postharvest process for cacao cultivation.

José Antonio Amaya, a beneficiary of the Fondo Portugal project from the municipality of San Calixto, emphasized that his quality of life has improved through the experience gained from project activities in his area and the information received on agricultural research. He concluded, "In these projects, we have learned to live otherwise since our experiences were different, and now we appreciate our territories, our environment, and what we must take care of."