Cocoa sows hope in forgotten Colombia

The banks of the Arauca River are strewn with cacao, which also appears in murals in the houses and even erected in monuments in Arauquita, a Colombian town victim of state neglect, which clings to the fact that this fruit brings well-being.

In this area of ​​the department of Arauca, only separated from Venezuela by the rough waters of the river of the same name, cocoa producers knew how to be respected by the guerrillas -or at least stay on the sidelines-, survive the damage caused by oil and stand your ground when the coke arrived.

More than 6,500 families live on cacao in Arauca, almost all peasant women with less than 20 hectares, associated in cooperatives to face the abusive prices imposed by the companies that bought the raw grain.

The price before was “very low, very bad,” explains Hugo Castro, a farmer from the village of La Pica, son of one of the cocoa farmers who founded Compracar, the cooperative of which he is now president, as he walks through the facilities where three young men mix cocoa beans fresh from the pod to ferment, the first step in production.

Control of the guerrillas

“Arauca did not have guerrilla phenomena,” recalls Domingo Pérez, vice president of the municipal committee of cocoa farmers in Arauquita, despite the fact that he arrived in 2000 when the conflict was already at its worst.

He clarifies that the guerrillas came with the discovery of oil, in Caño Limón, a nearby deposit that “put Colombia in the eye of the world.”

“The only thing we are left with from oil is the pollution, the hollow, the deforestation, the change of the river beds and the violence,” says this agricultural engineer, alluding to the fact that the crude attracted the guerrillas.

There they learned to live with that power in the shadows, which in some years walked in armed uniforms through these farming towns where the presence of the State was – and continues to be – minimal, taking advantage of the lack of justice, education and employment.

This is how they learned to “accept” the guerrillas, both from the National Liberation Army (ELN), the strongest in the area, and from the FARC, or rather to “resign oneself to sharing the territory with her”, although many agree that cocoa, as it was a poor man’s business from which they barely made a profit, was respected.

“Above the guerrillas, there is cocoa,” the cocoa growers proudly affirm.

The arrival of coca

With the guerrillas, specifically with the FARC, came the expansion of coca, Pérez also recalls. “We saw how Arauquita at one point went from nothing to having” some 4,000 hectares planted.

Despite this, the cocoa farmers insist that they are the proud children of people dedicated to this fruit and they stood firm. “Of the cocoa producers, none of them planted coca,” says the engineer, who points his finger in the distance, uncultivated lands that were filled with coca and “threw mountains” to plant it.

With coca, young people from humble families began to walk around with gold chains, luxury cars (smuggled) and pay for whiskey in dollars – remember the farmers – while they continued trying to get some pesos for the cocoa they sold in the capital so that They will transform it into chocolate bars or drinks that are usually taken for breakfast.

The first process of eradication of illicit crops began even before the peace agreement with the FARC, by the same cocoa farmers who entered the coca-growing areas and, with the approval of the ELN, began to uproot plants.

“The ELN liked the idea and they called us,” recalls Luis Alberto Castaño, from the National Federation of Cocoa farmers in Arauca. They gave them the authorization and although the coca growers “wanted to go out and cut us down,” that gave them guarantees.

After the signing of peace with the FARC, five years ago, more than 3,500 hectares of coca were eradicated and Arauquita was one of the first municipalities to be declared free of these crops.

Many farms started to have cocoa and little by little the crops went from the 7,000 hectares of the sweet fruit in the 2000s to the 18,000 that there are today, of which they produce over 12,000 tons of cocoa per year.

The strength of cocoa took them out of dark times and now they exhibit their products in international salons and organize their own to consecrate what they say is one of the best beans in the world.