Putumayo, Colombia: Doris Caicedo, a retired teacher, spends her retirement on a farm surrounded by the Colombian Amazon with her crops of sacha inchi – or, as it has come to be known, the ‘star of Putumayo’ because of its shape and nutritional benefits.
Doris was made to give back to the community.
She had already dedicated her life to teaching in her town of Puerto Asís, Colombia, a small town near the Ecuadorian and Peruvian borders. But in her retirement, she was searching for a way to bring even more positive change to her community.
Her region, Putumayo, had registered the highest increase in coca cultivation in 2022, according to a recent survey from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
An Alternative Development initiative created by UNODC, the Colombian government and international cooperation partners, such as the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), aimed to help communities in Putumayo replace coca with sustainable crops that promote wellbeing.
Alternative development initiatives seek to provide sustainable livelihoods to communities that cultivate illicit drug crops because they are unable to obtain sufficient income from legal activities due to conflict or lack of markets, basic infrastructure, or land.
Though she had never grown coca herself, Doris recognized that the program presented an opportunity for her community. She decided to start a new career as a farmer, harvesting sacha inchi, a fruit gaining popularity worldwide.
Also known as the ‘Inca peanut’, sacha inchi is native to the Amazon and has been cultivated for centuries by indigenous communities.
Many high quality products – like oil, flour, and nuts – can be extracted from sacha inchi seeds, giving it a high potential in national and international markets. It contains high levels of omega 3, 6, and 9 fatty acids, as well as antioxidants, vitamins A and E.
Doris is one of 700 families in Colombia supported by the project, who together have established 490 hectares of sacha inchi. 60 per cent of these families used to grow coca.
"Being a teacher in the countryside has helped me to empower myself as a farmer,” Doris relates.
Doris’ success has also brought her admiration from her community. “I am happy to be seen on the same level as men because life has taught me that it is not only men or women who can progress individually, but human beings as a whole."
The Alternative Development project has indeed helped diverse communities in Putomayo. 17 per cent of participants are indigenous, four per cent are Afro-Colombian, and 79 per cent are peasant farmers. Nearly half (48 per cent) of the beneficiaries are women.
With UNODC support, the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF in Spanish), recently reformulated its ‘bienestarina’ - a high-value nutritional supplement – to include sacha inchi.
Every month, ICBF distributes the pre-cooked food, made of a mixture of cereals, legumes, powdered milk and enriched with vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids, to around 2.2 million children, teenagers, pregnant women, nursing mothers, and seniors.
With the new formula, ICBF is seeking to replace wheat flour and linseed oil (both of which are imported products) with all 490 hectares of sacha inchi from the Alternative Development programme in Putomayo, together with 4,112 hectares of cassava. The initiative will therefore not only improve nutrition among vulnerable populations, but also provide a guaranteed market and income for communities in Putomayo.
“This Bienestarina of ours is a milestone for what we hope to achieve in terms of the human right to food,” said Astrid Cáceres, IBCF director, during an event launching the new formula.
