COMFENALCO Antioquia Second Peace Laboratory in the East of Antioquia

Second Peace Laboratory in the East of Antioquia

The Departmental Committee of Coffee Growers, COMFENALCO Antioquia, COREDI and the Antioquia Cooperative of Coffee Growers benefit 500 farming youths through the Second Peace Laboratory in the East of Antioquia.

Within the framework of the Second Peace Laboratory, during the past month of November the Entrepreneurial and Successful Young Farmers project was approved, presented in partnership by the National Federation of Coffee Growers, the Educational Corporation for Integral Development – COREDI, the Antioquia Cooperative of Coffee Growers and COMFENALCO Antioquia.

Through this project, the partner institutions will contribute to the financial, social and personal development of 500 farming youths and their families, through the development of production and marketing projects for special coffee with a focus on ecologically sustainable chains and the promotion of a joint economy. The implementation will be carried out over 24 months in 17 towns in the East of Antioquia, one of the areas of the country that has suffered most from the armed conflict.

The strategies which will be implemented in the project are:

Technical training in sustainable coffee production and the care of the environment.
Human education for strengthening values, life projects, human rights, democracy, participation, gender equity and leadership.
Promotion of entrepreneurial ideals and jointly responsible work.
Establishment of coffee plantations in agricultural and forest systems, and of productive projects which will engender nutritional security.
Strengthening of the ecological infrastructure for post-harvest processing of the coffee and for the transformation of the generated sub-products.
Negotiation of environmental and social seals for marketing and selling the coffee produced by the project.

The Peace Laboratories are the European Commission’s main tool of financial and technical cooperation for Colombia, and they seek the creation of political, cultural and economic transformation in order to achieve a lasting peace and improved conditions for the inhabitants of the intervened regions.