From Cauca to Santander: The Nasa people demonstrate that innovation breaks down barriers

• Ten Indigenous women and men from the Nasa People, from the López Adentro Indigenous Reserve in Caloto, Cauca, participated on August 19 and 20 in a technical tour across the department of Santander to exchange knowledge and learn about experiences related to cocoa production and processing.

 

Rionegro, Santander, August 19, 2026.  When knowledge circulates, is compared, and is shared, new possibilities for innovation emerge. With this idea in mind, ten Indigenous women and men from the Nasa People participated in a technical tour across Santander as part of the process to strengthen the Cauca–López Adentro Territorial Innovation System (TIS).

The activity is part of the work plan developed with the community and seeks to strengthen cocoa-related capacities through exchanges with researchers, producers, and entrepreneurs. In Santander, the delegation was welcomed and accompanied by the technical team of the Catatumbo TIS, ultimately turning the tour into an encounter between two experiences that share an innovation vision based on dialogue among different forms of knowledge, collective construction, and recognition of each territory’s particular characteristics.

Cauca and Catatumbo are regions that have experienced the direct effects of violence. Therefore, the TIS approach also recognizes the importance of promoting initiatives that strengthen local capacities, build trust, create opportunities, and contribute, through science and innovation, to peacebuilding in the territories.

 

A Day Focused on Cocoa

On August 19, the delegation visited the La Suiza Research and Technology Transfer Center in Rionegro, Santander. The agenda included mass production of cacao planting material, germplasm banks, agroforestry systems, integrated pest and disease management, post-harvest technologies, and sensory quality.

Rather than simply receiving technical information, the purpose is to compare this knowledge with the productive, environmental, and cultural conditions of the Nasa territory and generate new questions for the work being carried out in López Adentro.

According to Yanine Rozo Leguizamón, Researcher and Coordinator of the Cauca–López Adentro TIS, this process reflects how the work with Indigenous communities has been developed:

“Working with the Nasa People has allowed us to understand that science acquires meaning when it engages in dialogue with their own ways of understanding and inhabiting the territory. These spaces allow us to listen, recognize the community’s knowledge, and jointly develop responses to the challenges they themselves have identified as priorities.”

 

Learning from Other Experiences to Strengthen What Is Their Own

On August 20, the tour continues in Floridablanca and Ruitoque, where the delegation will learn about experiences in processing and value addition. The agenda includes a visit to Cervecería Artesanal Medieval, which has incorporated cocoa into craft beer production, as well as a processing enterprise developed by a producer from the region.

For María Fernanda Garrido Rubiano, Ph.D. Researcher at AGROSAVIA, these exchanges are a fundamental part of building the TISs:

“Learning about other experiences allows us to compare what we do, ask new questions, and return with ideas that can be reinterpreted based on our own reality. Innovation also occurs when communities recognize how others have addressed similar challenges and, through that exchange, develop their own responses.”

The tour does not seek to transfer experiences from Santander to Cauca automatically. Its purpose is to observe, ask questions, compare, and learn, to subsequently identify, together with the community, which knowledge, practices, or technologies may be relevant to López Adentro.

Thus, over these two days, cocoa becomes a meeting point for communities, producers, researchers, and territorial teams. An exchange that demonstrates that innovation knows no borders when knowledge circulates, strengthens capacities, and contributes to creating new opportunities and peace from within the territories.