Endogenous rural development planning. Case: Vereda El Vergel in Palmor - Ciénaga Magdalena, Colombia
Abstract
In Colombia, the agricultural sector is a strategic point to generate development in the territories; but few governmental actions are implemented to achieve it, therefore, the objective of this research is to explain how the rural development of
Vereda Vergel in Palmor-Ciénaga Magdalena, Colombia, has taken place based on the productive activities developed by its inhabitants under the criterion of governance of the community itself focused on its welfare. Methodologically, it is classified as a descriptive-explanatory field study with a qualitative approach, following the theoretical postulates of Alburquerque (2007) and Martínez de Anguita (2006). As a data collection technique, an interview script was applied to a
focus group formed by farmers of the village. The main finding shows that there is no planning in the territory to promote the rural development generated within the community; however, the community diversifies its productive activity in fruit and bread crops such as lemon, mango, strawberry, coffee, yucca, yams; on the other hand, animal husbandry: chickens, ducks, pigs and cows, as well as beekeeping activities. In this sense, all the primary production and handcrafted processed products are only commercialized within the locality through ancestral barter systems, without giving space to commercialize to other territories of the department, because the mobility to the outskirts of the village is difficult to access due to the lack of paved roads, limiting or making null other forms of commercialization that would generate development in the territory. In this sense, it is concluded that there is leadership on the part of the communities to generate endogenous rural development, however, this does not transcend for lack of real commitment materialized by the municipal governance, but in spite of this, the community is food sovereign because they do not apply agro-extractivism, they only focus on the common food welfare of the community.