A complete success: farmers have sold 820 tons of potatoes at the Cundinamarca tolls

After days of uncertainty and during a weekend in which the leading role has been taken by heavy rains, the farmers of Cundinamarca smiled again. This holiday bridge they have managed to sell in seven tolls of the department the potatoes that they had accumulated and that they were almost giving away on the roadsides, as a result of the oversupply, imports and the crisis due to the pandemic.

The Government of Cundinamarca, which has accompanied the producers and that together with the liquor companies had their trucks to transport the potato to the tolls, reported that at noon on November 15 820 tons of this product were sold, representing 600 million pesos. During last Friday and Saturday, there was not a kilo of potato that was not dispatched.

The best thing, however, is not that the tubers that were cultivated with so much sacrifice were sold and then harvested by the peasants, but rather that they were sold at a fair price. Prior to the idea of ​​offering potatoes at tolls by the governor of Cundinamarca, Nicolás García, the producers were leaving the intermediaries each package at $ 25,000; now, in a direct producer-consumer relationship, they are selling it for $ 40,000.

The added value of the potato that is being sold at tolls is that in addition to being selected, whose commercialization has been a success, it is already washed

“I brought about 70 packages (…). In the market they would have given me 1,300,000. And here I became 2,500,000 ”, said José Quintero, one of the producers of the tuber, happily.

Despite expressing their happiness for the sale of potatoes in the tolls of Cundinamarca, the producers of this union have asked the national government for long-term solutions not only in order to avoid crises like the one they are experiencing, but to guarantee food sovereignty. In fact, some of them protested this weekend in front of the headquarters of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

They say that despite being able to produce the potato necessary to feed the country, this tuber is being imported from Europe. Hence, the proposal to increase import tariffs to 30 percent, a measure that, for now, the Government rejected.

One of the measures that the Minister of Agriculture, Rodolfo Zea Navarro, announced to overcome the crisis It is to buy the potato directly from the producers, in alliance with the Food Bank, to donate it to those most in need.

“We are looking for the best solutions for potato producers, who have seen their harvest sales diminish due to the fall in demand that hotels, restaurants, schools and other buyers normally had. Through this donation, we can help both producers and the neediest families ”, noted Minister Zea.