How coffee brings hope to displaced persons in Colombia

Ten women come down the mountain smiling, their faces tanned by the Andes sun. They are on their way to plant some fifty coffee plants, hoping that in two- years time and with a bit of luck, the organic coffee harvest will be enough to satisfy the needs of their commune, made up of 41 families-192 persons.

Their commune is 38 kilometres from Pasto, the capital of Colombia's Nariño Department. Carmen Pantoja, the woman in charge of the group, stands in the middle of the field and explains: "All the members of our commune are displaced persons who have fled the areas they come from, mainly Putumayo Department, because of fighting between armed groups. Most of the civilian men have been killed. We are all women determined to rebuild our lives in a safer area."

The Government of Colombia provided the land to establish Finca Montana, a small farm on the rich hillsides of the municipality of Chachagui. With funding from CIDA, the World Food Programme (WFP) supplied the commune with food rations for 80 days so that the women and children would have something to live on while settling in. Each ration weighs about 50 kilograms and feeds 5 people for 40 days. The rations contain corn oil, wheat flour, salt, sugar, and grain (beans, rice, or lentils)-enough to provide each person with about 2,100 calories per day.

Yet, despite its poverty, Colombia is not an undernourished country. The WFP's presence can be accounted for by the high number of displaced persons living in extremely precarious conditions. Of Colombia's population of 44 million, 2.5 million to 4 million are displaced persons.

Juanita, one of the commune women, tells her story: "Illegal armed groups came during the night and killed my husband. They gave me a few minutes to leave my house with my three children. We left in the middle of the night for Pasto, the nearest city, with only the clothes on our backs. In Pasto, I found refuge at a temporary shelter and I registered with the Ministry of Social Welfare as a displaced person. Some days later, I found work as a street fruit vendor. It was through other displaced persons that I heard about Finca Montana and the plantation work being done there."

Like Juanita, every woman in the commune has a tragic story to tell, detailing how loved ones were lost or disappeared and why she hurriedly left her native village.

The finca can only accommodate 27 women at a time as the commune has only two residences. The women have agreed to divide the chores. Some work on the 130-hectare farm; others have temporary jobs in the city as domestic servants, street vendors, laundresses, and so on. Families rotate every eight days. With support from the Ministry of Agriculture and the Colombian Rural Development Institute, the women will receive training in coffee growing, cattle breeding, and vegetable gardening.

Señora Pantoja explains: "The work is hard, because we have no machinery and there are no men to do the heavy lifting. First we cleared 10 hectares of shrubbery from the meadow, dug planting holes, enriched the soil, raised seedlings under shelter, and watered regularly, then we prayed to God for the rains to come in time."

Juanita adds, sadly: "The hardest part is leaving the children in the city, in the care of family or sometimes neighbours, so we can come work here. We hope to build 27 residences in the next five months, so we can be here with our families." The International Organization for Migration has offered its financial and technical support to help the women achieve this goal.

Still, there is no shortage of obstacles. The finca is far from the city, and the commune has no means of transportation. The dirt road will soon become a path, and there are two bridges left to build. The farm does not yet produce enough to provide a regular source of income. Jobs are rare in Pasto, a city plagued by a 19-percent unemployment rate. Hospitals and schools are far away.

Under these conditions, the WFP's contribution is essential. WFP representative Manuela Ángel explains: "Food for work on the farm enables the women to survive until the first harvest of fruit, of vegetables, and grain, such as maize and frijoles (beans). We also follow up on education and health, in cooperation with the Colombian ministries concerned." The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture has supplied about 40 cattle and 70,000 coffee beans to provide income and food on a medium-term basis.

Carmen Pantoja and her companions climb back up the hillside meadow toward their bare houses. These women lack everything. They are hungry, their work is hard, and the results of their labour are a long time coming. They know they will never go home: the insidious war rages on, and they would rather leave buried the painful memories of violence and death. They are, however, determined and continue to hope that their organic coffee will become a success with coffee lovers around the world.

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The World Food Programme in Nariño Department

For several years now, Canada has been supporting the presence of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Colombia. This United Nations multilateral organization has a mandate to provide emergency food to the world's most famished people.

The WFP is active mainly through the Prolonged Aid and Recovery Operation (Operación Prolongada de Socorro y Recuperación) strategy, which targets those who are most vulnerable, including displaced persons as a result of internal armed conflicts.

The WFP is very active in Nariño Department, in southeast Colombia. Illegal armed groups have been fighting in the region for several years. The rate of displaced persons rose dramatically by 52 percent from 2007 to 2008. Of the department's 1.6 million citizens, about 35,000 are displaced persons; another 10,000 are trapped in their communities by the fighting and anti-personnel mines.

According to Manuela Ángel, a WFP representative in Colombia: "Forced displacements have a serious impact on families, especially the children. Assessments done in September 2009 estimated that more than 20 percent of children aged 8 months to 10 years suffer from chronic malnutrition. More than 23 percent of families have no income, making them wholly dependent on food aid."

Since its arrival in Nariño Department in 2006, the WFP has distributed food aid to more than 82,000 displaced or vulnerable persons. But its work does not stop there: the WFP also works to prevent children from dropping out of school and from being forced to join armed groups; provides community canteens for children who do not attend school; and provides food supplies to people trapped behind combat zones. Each year since 2008, the WFP has supported more than 530,000 displaced and vulnerable persons throughout Colombia.

Señora Ángel adds: "One of our biggest challenges is to meet the needs of a growing population while coping with our rising costs. The economic crisis has caused an increase of close to 7 percent in the price of food and transportation fuel, and unfortunately, support from donor countries has not followed suit. The most vulnerable, including native groups and Afro-Colombians, are feeling the shortfall."