The government takes over FNC! Major changes in the coffee industry in Colombia

Earlier, the Colombian country suffered from internal strife and external trouble. first, armed clashes occurred between domestic government forces and the "Central staff headquarters" of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, resulting in the damage to several industries, especially the agricultural industry. among them, the coffee industry is facing problems such as weather change, rising prices such as fertilizers caused by geopolitics, reduced acreage, the national political system, exchange rates, and coffee competition in other American countries.

It is understood that coffee in Colombia has always been mainly produced by small coffee farms. In order to protect the interests of small coffee farms, the Colombian Coffee Alliance was established in 1920 under the proposal of a coffee farmer. After that, it led to a more authoritative and standardized Colombian National Coffee producers Association, referred to as FNC. Although the organization has always represented the Colombian National Coffee, FNC has always been a private company, not a government organization, so it is limited in many ways.

Recently, Colombia held a large coffee producers conference, at which Colombian President Gustavo Petro (Gustavo Petro) said that the country must take over the National Coffee Growers Union (FNC) in order to protect and properly use public resources, and that state intervention would industrialize the coffee industry and export better products.

It also said that at present, FNC is funded, but it is not used correctly, and after the government takes over, it technicalizes resources to various regions, small producers and farms, and proposes to establish credit lines for producers, infrastructure modernization and optical fiber to connect farms, with emphasis on establishing coffee cooperatives controlled by the same member. The state will help promote these projects economically and industrialize the coffee sector. In order to export coffee.

In addition, the coffee industry encountered a lot of problems earlier, and the producers said they would protest and ask the relevant departments to take measures to control coffee prices, and stated that if the government did not solve the problem, there would be a nationwide strike at the end of April. However, at the coffee conference, the government decided to launch the "Coffee Price Stabilization Fund" based on the data collected by the technical analysis that international price fluctuations, rising production costs and El Ni ñ o had a great impact on the coffee industry.

This "coffee price stabilization fund" will provide coffee growers with financial compensation of up to 80% of the price per kilogram of coffee beans in order to reduce the losses suffered by coffee growers due to price fluctuations in the international market or increased production costs.

Although the government intends to improve the current situation of the domestic coffee industry, the civil strife in the country has not been resolved. On 7 April, the Central staff issued a statement warning civilians not to go near the authorities' patrols, the army, the police force and any other armed units of the Government, as new armed conflicts may occur.

In addition, despite the publication of threatening military actions, the Central staff still called for dialogue with the President. Therefore, on 8 April, the Government of Colombia and the rebels decided to hold a new round of dialogue in Caracas, Venezuela, on 12 April, hoping to resolve the issue peacefully.