Mercados solidarios - Minuto de Dios

The main problem faced by peasant and family farmers in Colombia is the difficulty in marketing their agricultural products. Since the peasant economies have been relegated by industrialized agriculture, which prioritize the production and sale of crops on a large scale, displacing and competing with comparative advantages with the production at low and medium scale of food.

The solution is to expand product marketing channels, through which small farmers can offer their agro-ecological products at fair prices and promote responsible consumption.

The solution serves peasant families from all regions of Colombia, who wish to offer their agroecological products at fair prices, improving their income and therefore their quality of life.

The problem faced by family farmers in Colombia is the great difficulty of marketing their agricultural products at fair prices. Since peasant economies have been relegated by foreign food products that prioritize the production and sale of crops on a large scale, this together with climate change, the destruction of ecosystems, inefficient and polluting industrial agriculture, the commodification of food , health problems associated with food, destruction of community lifestyles, social and economic polarization and the appearance of COVID -19 to finish revealing the resounding failure of the modernity project, its industrial agriculture and its hegemonic agri-food system.

Faced with this, there are very few markets that offer good quality products, cultivated without toxic elements, that have a traceability of the production chain and that have differential prices so that consumers of all social classes can acquire them and, in turn, farmers sell them at fair prices.

Despite the fact that there are two "solidarity markets" stores, sales are not enough to achieve sustainability and to be able to link many more farmers interested in marketing their products. It is necessary to expand the channels and marketing, to publicize the project, the farmers and the possibility of buying healthy food.

The solution is to expand the product marketing channels, through which family and community farmers in Colombia can offer their agro-ecological products at fair prices and promote responsible consumption.

We consider that two of the possible marketing channels that can increase sales in peasant markets, consist in the creation of a web page (e-commerce) and an application, where on the one hand, food products are offered to be marketed at fair prices for both farmers and final consumers, on the other hand, a geo-referenced database can be established that allows locating and contacting national farmers who need to offer their products.

The website and the application also allow the exchange of experiences and stories among family farmers, where ways of cultivating the land, ways of transforming the products, fairs and other marketing spaces in which they can be present can be shared.

The solution serves family and community peasant farmers from all regions of Colombia, who wish to offer their agroecological products at fair prices, increasing opportunities to make their agricultural products, their origin, their peasant roots, their history, their political activity, their importance in transforming their territories and improving their income with increased sales and therefore their quality of life. Also, it will benefit final consumers who wish to buy nutritious foods, not so expensive and that guarantee their safety and production methods that are friendly to the environment and human health.

Agroecology has drawn attention to the infeasibility of maintaining an industrialized agri-food system and has offered, thanks to the work of farmers, a series of alternatives to the hegemonic agri-food system, but also to the prevailing political-economic system. Food security and sovereignty have been increased, the creation of alternative agri-food systems, consumer networks and "Mercados solidarios", which allow farmers to better plan their production, improve their profitability and allow consumers to buy fresh, nutritious, healthy and priced food fair. It will encourage farmers to participate in useful technologies that allow them to increase income and better sell their products.

Agroecological markets are places of exchange, which are born from society and are based on direct relationships and face-to-face transactions, which constitute, as Shiva (2006) would say, an extension of society. In this way, Mercados Solidarios - MD seeks to claim many actions that the current economic system has been responsible for eliminating as they are considered useless, since they go precisely against all the principles on which current production systems have been built, food processing, marketing and consumption.

Mercados solidarios - MD, is a way of responding to the perverse effects of the capitalist market economy, introducing and promoting an innovative way for some part of society to gain their food security and sovereignty and get out of social exclusion, self-sufficing food on the one hand and participating in the construction of an alternative movement of consumption, as a revitalized way of resisting neoliberal globalization at the local level and of economic revival for various peasant families in the country.

The e-commerce and the APP market is an opportunity to migrate and increase local markets to electronic commerce. We consider it of great importance to be able to bring family and community peasant farmers from Colombia closer to the use of technologies, allowing them to have a virtul relationship to exchange, stories, knowledge and actions around agroecology. Likewise, it will be a space for the commercialization of fresh, nutritious and healthy food products that have been produced under conditions of social, environmental and economic justice.

This e-commerce will have a UX / UI User experience information and application architecture, a professional and attractive PSD finish, for desktops and mobiles, Responsive-Design functionality (Only one structure, double functionality).
SAAS service of content manager (CMS) of the website with the following main sections, which are: General, Sheet, Recommended Products, Purchasing process, User registration and administration, Integration with PayU Latam's secure platform with a return system to the customer's store and payment acceptance or rejection. (Does not include PayU service costs).

The development of the platform will be carried out with the products:

Wordpress: Content Management System, based on PHP language that allows to develop dynamic and interactive websites, which allows to create, modify or delete content from the website to through its administration panel.
Woocommerce: Complementary plugin for Wordpress required for virtual store and e-commerce processes on websites.

The "Mercados solidarios - MD" e-commerce has already passed the phases of:
Design: Elaboration of images and structures from the design in PFD delivered.
Front end: Generation of html and css3 structure with support for mobile devices.
Development: Website with a content manager for editing the site under the Wordpress structure.
CMS SAAS: Availability of CMS platform as a service (SAAS).
Deployment is required: Putting the website and services developed into production.
Knowledge transfer in site administration and application development is required.

This radicalized modernity, among the many things that it has caused, is that people abandon and go inexorably losing their own culture, their knowledge and their own vision of the world, because as we have seen, colonization is not just about their economy. , but also of your ideas. Where the material (and if it is from outside your region, it is thought to be the best) marks the way of living through consumption. However, a growing awareness is currently developing that in order to achieve true development, people depend fundamentally on their own resources, visions and creativity. Revaluing their own culture, trying to regain faith in traditional values, knowledge and institutions in life.

Hence, in many parts of the world, projects that propose strategies are emerging or have been operating for some years, but are invisible by the current economic system different from those dictated by economic neoliberalism, proposals that are configured as an alternative modernity, which proposes to organize citizen resistance, and build social power.

This should lead us to develop alternative ways of life based on self-management, self-sufficiency, diversity, participatory democracy and equity, through which individuals, families, and communities regain control over the processes that they affect, that is to say, they diminish the risk to which it has condemned them to live the society dominated by capital.

What is required, then, is to simultaneously focus attention on the viability and emancipatory potential of the multiple alternatives that have been formulated and practiced around the world, which represent forms of economic organization based on equality, solidarity and protection. enviroment.

Agroecological markets are places of exchange, which are born from society and are based on direct relationships and face-to-face transactions, which constitute an extension of society. In this way, Solidarity Markets - MD tries to claim many actions that the current economic system has been responsible for eliminating as they are considered useless, since they go precisely against all the principles on which current production systems have been built, food processing, marketing and consumption.

It currently benefits 50 farm supplier families, and approximately 500 consumers. In one year, it will benefit 100 farming families and 1000 final consumers. In 5 years, it will favor 5 families of farmers and around 10,000 final consumers, aware of their active role in today's society who are interested in eating healthy and nutritious, who are concerned about the environmental impact generated by the forms of production. Conventional and that recognize solidarity and social justice as a principle in supporting the peasant economy.

The objectives are:

- Identify consumption patterns according to the income of the inhabitants of the different localities of Bogotá.

- Promote meeting places, aimed at satisfying basic needs, and where a social and political power of its participants is also built (Producers - Consumers).

- Provide a wide offer of fresh, processed foods, plants, natural cosmetic products, crafts and toiletries at affordable and fair prices for all market players.

- Establish five physical points of solidarity markets - MD in Bogotá.

The existing barriers are:

Consumer culture

Despite the fact that some factors have been identified that stimulate the purchase of agro-ecological products, such as health, nutrition, organoleptic quality of food, care for the environment and fashion, it is still necessary to raise awareness about more reasons profound, such as the support of the local economy, the proper sense of eating and responsibility towards nature and the beings that inhabit it.

Limited production 

The difficulty to maintain a continuous production and diversity of fruits and vegetables, which can be attributed to several factors, such as: poor technical ability, unpredictable climatic conditions and natural disasters, little availability of ecological seeds, ignorance of soil management techniques, etc. So the production of fruits and vegetables is limited and in many occasions with low production levels. With this problem, marketing shrinks and cannot grow because it is impossible to find a market for products that are only available for a few months.

Lack or deficiency in transportation systems

Although there are more producers, the problem is not always solved because coordination between several producers to produce different crops is very difficult. Quality control during transportation and storage also becomes increasingly important as volumes increase, an investment in improving transportation conditions may be necessary, but the financial resources are not always available to do so.

The quality of products

The factors indicated in the technical part of the production, the products do not have an adequate quality and that attracts the attention of consumers.

Through the promotion of short chains that guarantee local production, processing and marketing, so that most of the value of the product returns to the local producer and remains in circulation within the local economy. This approach excludes local food sales through supermarkets because they divert profits to distant corporations.

By promoting local marketing systems that make these foods accessible to sectors of the population that do not have access to them. And the exclusion of sales through supermarkets, which tend to increase a greater range of crops that have generally traveled long distances and have a long shelf life.

By strengthening local organizations, which in turn can be achieved, improving the visibility of family and community farmers, to publicize their agri-food products. Likewise, through marketing processes that allow improving the ability of people to have and maintain their own initiatives. This would imply the adoption of a continuous teaching-learning process approach between producers and the Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios, the promotion of new professional values, participatory methodologies and behaviors, and the possibility of participating in policies that aim to promote food systems and local economies.

5 people work directly at work.

Because the Minuto de Dios University Corporation -UNIMINUTO-, to which the Rural Development Management belongs, on which “Mercados Solidarios” depends, is a non-profit organization that has been around for 60 years, providing aid services to less favored communities.

The Minuto de Dios University Corporation -UNIMINUTO- is a private, non-profit Higher Education institution. It was founded in 1990 in Colombia and from there it has been developing a comprehensive educational model oriented to the social commitment of its graduates, based on the experience of 64 years in caring for vulnerable groups, with housing programs, social development, education, employment, health and evangelization, which mainly benefits socioeconomic levels 1, 2, and 3 of the population, with programs for secondary vocational education, job training, and higher education at technological, university, and postgraduate levels. Its mission is: To train responsible professionals, technically competitive, ethically oriented and socially committed; promoting the integral development of people, communities and organizations; contributing to the construction of a more just, democratic, participative and solidary nation that respects its own and other people's cultural values. For which, it has a large number of academic, technological, university, postgraduate and continuing education programs that are tailored to the needs of the industry and the requirements and expectations of our students, graduates and the community in general. Each of the faculties and management centers maintains a direct relationship with the communities, companies and local governments, to work with them together, for the development of our country.

We are part of a network of more than 140 rural, indigenous, afro-descendant, rural women, artisanal fisheries, cooperatives, universities, NGOs, religious organizations, among other groups, who decided to work together to promote family farming in the country under the permanent campaign "Sowing PEACE with family farming".

The business model consists of contacting family farmers in the region annexed to Bogotá initially, knowing and approving their product offer, formalizing their registration with the organization's administrative and financial system, periodically buying a stock of products, and selling to different segments of the Bogotá population, which includes the academic and administrative community of the different entities of the Minuto de Dios Organization.

The sustainability of the project is supported by the advice and training that the Sustainable Rural Development Management will carry out, which is the service unit of the Minuto de Dios Organization, which aims to promote and strengthen rural initiatives based on agriculture. family and community, based on the management and development of projects and programs that fully promote the social, environmental, cultural and political dimensions involved in rural development.

In this sense, Solidarity Markets, as part of management services, is a project that, in addition to supporting the commercialization of products, provides training tools that educate, inspire and motivate farmers to maintain and strengthen the peasant market.

On the other hand, the creation of a fund that is available to finance the market's own operating operations and its constant improvement and strengthening will be encouraged.

Likewise, social accompaniment protocols will be established that promote the good relations of the farmers participating in the project.

We are applying Solve to expand our marketing channels, to be able to link as many farmers as possible to our market and to help them scale their products and make their histories and territorial political actions visible. We want to take advantage of the MIT and Solve network for possible partnerships and financial support to help us grow our business.

Solidarity Markets - MD, is a store-type market that operates in two stores, one located at the main entrance of the Minuto de Dios neighborhood and the other in the facilities of the Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios. It also works for home delivery in Bogotá exclusively.
Currently, 50% of producers and Solidarity Markets - MD as such, also participate in the UNIMINUTO Agroecological Fair that operates on the first Thursday of each month between February and May and August to November of each year. An e-commerce was built, through which agroecological products will be commercialized, but it wants to scale to an application that facilitates the connection between farmers and final consumers.

While we've been relatively successful, the exposure that comes with winning a competition of this magnitude can help us register more users and build a good roster of local and national partners as we scale our marketing support service. The final prize that comes with winning this competition can help finance our customer acquisition, segmented into conscious and responsible consumers.

Our highest priority in the present and next year is to be able to support the commercialization of food grown by family farmers in Colombia. Thus, they will increase their income and improve their living conditions that have been permeated not only by the current socio-economic system, but by the emergence of the pandemic that has generated tremendous impacts on the economy of these families.

Thus, we are looking for partners who can advise us on issues of social marketing, digital commerce and community organization.

To accelerate our growth and capacity to support family farmers in Colombia, we want to work with transport companies that can support us in the arrival of food at our collection centers, with different companies, universities, schools and restaurants that wish to include in their food offers, nutritious and healthy food alternatives.

Likewise, we would like to partner with government institutions in charge of community kitchens, so that they can provide our agro-ecological food to their users.

We will use the award to:

1. Finish construction and training in e-commerce administration.
2. Design and have an application that allows access to farmers to show their products and contact information. In this way we will facilitate and promote agroecological businesses.
3. Map agro-ecological farmers who grow healthy food and who are carrying out processes of territorial transformation.
4. Improve the physical conditions of the premises where the market currently operates.
We would use the award to advance the development of the four uses described above.