The Sweet Expression of Panela
How public policy tools and a public-private partnership is giving Cesar’s sugarcane farmers the chance to flourish
© 2018 Land and Rural Development Program in Colombia
La Panelita
Five years ago, sugarcane farmers in Cesar had few outlets for their products. Although Colombia is known for its panela — unrefined cane sugar — in this corner of the Caribbean, in the department of Cesar, sugarcane farmers have spent years either sending their cane harvests to processors down south or producing panela on a small scale for community consumption.
But the future of panela in Cesar looks bright. Thanks to a recent spur to market high-quality panela, the industriousness of an indigenous community, and a USAID partnership with the regional government, Cesar’s panela is going from local to national to international.
Four years ago, Samuel Coronel paid a neighbor US$40 for ten sugarcane cuttings to plant on some open land on his farm, located in the town of Los Encantos, high in the Sierra Perijá on the Colombia-Venezuela border. After one cycle, he multiplied coverage, and so on, until he eventually covered 20 hectares of land. A few years later, he purchased a mechanized cane mill, what he saw as a critical step to convince his neighbors of the potential of panela. Coronel’s hard work inspired neighbors to grow sugarcane, but they still needed market channels, certifications, group synergy, and a regional and local government that would create an enabling environment.
Milling Organic
In 2017, as a result of collaboration between USAID and Cesar’s regional government, sugarcane growers, government entities, and the private sector came together to outline a road map to build a prosperous panela value chain.
The resulting public-private partnership (PPP) — valued at nearly US$1 million — includes over 300 producer families and private sector players like top Colombian panela firm Doña Panela and the regional Chamber of Commerce. As a first step, USAID financed a value chain analysis of panela in Cesar, which identified the capacities of dozens of farmer cooperatives and evaluated more than 40 sugarcane mills in six municipalities.
At the center of the partnership is the indigenous Arhuaco farmer cooperative Seynekum, based in Pueblo Bello, which leads Cesar with an average annual production of 45 tons. In May 2017, Coronel and other farmers in the partnership visited the Seynekum milling and packaging operation to learn how Seynekum, in just seven years, went from a small-scale farm to becoming Colombia’s only organic and fair-trade certified panela producer.
“We believe that growers must stop seeing the cane as their final product, and instead see panela as a way to add value and the best way to complement their coffee crops. With panela, they have a product to market for the other eight months of the year.”
-Claribeth Navarro, legal advisor and president of Seynekum.
After all, what is coffee without panela to sweeten it? Santander-based Doña Panela previously helped Seynekum reach its potential and continues to buy and market Seynekum’s organic panela under the Doña Panela label. This year, Seynekum created its own brand and is trying to replicate the model with third-party growers like Coronel. Since Seynekum has certified its panela with Colombia’s food regulatory authority, hundreds of growers stand to benefit via Seynekum. If good enough, their panela could finally travel to markets beyond their communities.
“As campesinos, we see the purchasing prices of coffee and panela falling, but when we go into the store, the consumer continues to pay the same price. It’s difficult to make any progress in this panorama,” says Samuel Coronel. “Partnering with Seynekum allows us to cross that barrier and improve production.” Seynekum recently visited Coronel’s mill and outlined what steps needed to be taken to meet the organic and free trade requirements.
Panela Explosion
In a broad-scale partnership such as this one, the public sector plays a critical role, both as backer and leader. Nearly half of the resources committed to the PPP come from the public sector, including municipalities, the regional government, and national-level agencies. USAID’s role in strengthening these institutions over several years has allowed local governments to mobilize greater resources and promote a rural development strategy that prioritizes land and water at the outset.
In addition to facilitating PPPs in the agricultural sector, USAID’s institutional strengthening activities helped the government of Cesar create long-term planning tools such as a property and land-use plan and an irrigation plan, meticulous sources of information that shape public policy, rural investments, and the future of Cesar.
Before USAID brokered the partnership, the regional division of the Colombian Corporation for Agricultural Research (Corpoica) had never paid much attention to sugarcane. This year, Corpoica’s regional research and investigation station, based in La Paz, created a research plan for sugarcane and began to look at the best varieties for Cesar’s geographical and soil specifications.
Alongside agricultural research, Cesar’s regional government has earmarked more than US$200,000 to jump start the region’s first ‘panela school’, a place to give growers skills and tools to improve yields and processing standards.
“The panela PPP has been really important for our region because it’s the one product that is connecting the people who work in the north with the people who work in the south. That’s unique on many levels — before this, we never saw that type of connection,” explains Secretary Campo.
Planning is Everything
“For four years, we have worked on these plans that allow us to respond to basic questions: What should we plant and where? How can we water our plants. With the union of these two plans, for the next fifteen years, agriculture production in Cesar is guaranteed to improve and be sustainable.”
- Carlos Campo, Cesar’s Secretary of Agriculture
New Funds
The importance of land-use planning cannot be overstated. Thanks to solid information and the regional government’s collaboration with USAID on two additional PPPs, the Secretariat of Agriculture accessed an additional US$750,000 to invest in the panela value chain. These resources will be used to help growers expand their crops, access better varieties of sugarcane, and repair their mills.
In farflung Siete de Agosto, nestled in a high valley in the Perijá, the panela PPP has helped farmers repair and set up a sugarcane mill that hadn’t run for more than ten years. Enabling the mill has allowed 40 families to ramp up panela production over 42 hectares.
“With the partnership, I feel like the government is finally doing its job in providing services and assitance. And as proof of that, never before in the history of Cesar has a Secretary of Agriculture made a visit to the Perijá mountains. Seeing the government up in these parts proves they are behind us,” says Coronel with a smile, as he sips a cup of coffee sweetened with panela.
