Good living and fair trade: a case study of small coffee growers in Ubaque-Cundinamarca

Abstract

The purpose of this document is to show the progress that has been made in the Institutional Research Project of the University of San Buenaventura, Bogotá, regarding the Good Living in the municipality of Ubaque.  This progress, in particular, is focused on the question of whether or not fair trade exists around the coffee activity present in the region since the transition of the productive vocation of traditional crops from the crisis of Colombian agriculture that persists caused, among other things, by the high competitiveness in the market as a result of the Free Trade Agreements (FTA), the low profitability and high production costs.  This has an impact on the quality of life of farmers, which deteriorates due to the fall in the prices of their products, since they do not receive the necessary income to cover the investment made for the development of this economic activity, which generates losses, despite the fact that the country is projected as an agricultural pantry par excellence, where the agricultural sector is one of the engines of the economy.

In this particular case it is concluded, from the semi-structured interviews carried out in a focused sample, that the preliminary response is that there is no knowledge of the concept of fair trade among the farmers of Ubaque and that the coffee trade clearly benefits the intermediaries and harms the sustainability of the territory, since it resorts to coffee varieties that lead to the abandonment of those that are better articulated with the biodiversity of the area.