In San Miguel, young people choose the countryside and transform their territory, supported by AGROSAVIA

• With the development of this initiative, the countryside of tomorrow is being sown today with young talent.
• Rurality is full of promise, and its true potential lies in the new generations.

 

San Miguel, Putumayo. December 22, 2025. At the southern edge of Colombia, where the Putumayo rainforest meets the border with Ecuador, San Miguel thrives. A territory marked by layers of history: the fertile land of rice, the turbulent subsoil of oil, and the transformative shadow of coca. A place where migration forged a complex identity and where, for decades, the future seemed like a seed that sprouted far from home.

Today, in this microcosm of resilience, a new revolution is taking root—one that does not extract, but sows; that does not divide, but takes root. The National Rural Youth Strategy, led by Corporación colombiana de investigación agropecuaria – AGROSAVIA and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, has arrived to change the narrative. Its mission is clear and powerful: to inspire new generations to fall in love with their land, so they choose to stay and flourish in it.

The epicenter of this rebirth is the El Sábalo Rural Educational Institution. In this institution, agricultural theory comes to life in the hands of young people. The conversation is no longer only about subsistence, but about agri-food sovereignty, territorial transformation, and rural entrepreneurship. The institution has become a laboratory for rural innovation, equipped by AGROSAVIA with technology that turns the fruits of the land into concrete opportunities.

To meet these challenges, the institution received from AGROSAVIA an industrial peeler and fryer to transform plantain into chips; a manual press and wooden barrels to ferment fruits into wines and spirits with local identity; a vacuum packaging machine, an industrial blender, an industrial sealer, and a panoramic refrigerator that ensures product quality and shelf life. Likewise, they received a pH meter, a digital thermometer, and a scale, which transformed tradition into precise, standardized recipes ready for the market.

Additionally, a biodigester was built to transform waste into clean energy, and a propagation tunnel that ensures the production of high-quality plantain seed, consolidating productive autonomy and the circular economy.

But equipment is only the tool. The real change is cultivated in the mind and spirit. AGROSAVIA’s team, through its offices at the Florencia and Costayaco sites, delivered experiential workshops to the youth of San Miguel. As a result, they now master Good Manufacturing Practices, production processes, design rural business models, explore alternative energies, and learn to establish crops with integrated and sustainable management—thus contributing to the conservation of the most important ecosystem on the planet: the Amazon.

This project is more than an investment in infrastructure; it is a bold commitment to human capital. It is consolidating Productive Pedagogical Projects (PPP) that are, in essence, incubators of agri-entrepreneurs. No longer are only students being trained; leaders are being formed—leaders who see in the countryside a landscape of viable, profitable, and sustainable dreams.

San Miguel is writing a new chapter. Where there was once a drainage of talent, today there is retention of hope. Where the past spoke of extraction, the future speaks of transformation with added value. Here, on the border, new generations are not looking outward in search of a future; they are building it with their own hands, from within, with the support of their parents and grandparents, turning the land of their ancestors into the fertile ground of their own success. The countryside has a future, and that future is called Rural Youth.