Relations between politics and coffee reality: a case study in Pitalito (Huila-Colombia)

Abstract

Since 2012 the Department of Huila and the municipality of Pitalito are the largest coffee producers in Colombia. By 2018 Pitalito represented 2.2% of the national coffee production and 12.7% of the departmental production. The purpose of this article is to characterise the coffee production chain in Pitalito and its connection with the prevailing coffee policies as an input for proposals to improve this relationship. A mixed research approach was applied that included 3 stages: pre-field (institutional secondary information), field (application of structured surveys by snowball sampling) and information analysis. The results show that the coffee from Pitalito is internationally recognized for its high quality; however, there are problems of disarticulation in the chain that influence prices, volumes and competitiveness, which can be corrected with policies adjusted to the regional context.