Abstract

CAICEDO DIAZ DEL CASTILLO, Juan Fernando. Brokering as an impediment to the development of small producers in Medellín. Corpoica cienc. tecnol. agropecu. [online]. 2013, vol.14, n.1, pp.27-32. ISSN 0122-8706.

The purpose of this article is to identify market constraints in agricultural products between the various actors in the production and marketing chain. It starts with understanding the inequalities of opportunities for vulnerable communities, and events or traditions outside those communities, which generate the conditions that perpetuate poverty from generation to generation. Agents involved in this market are immersed in these economic and sociocultural dynamics, favoring exclusion of social groups with less power, as in the case of small producers in Colombia. By means of a survey to fifty small farmers in the township of San Cristobal (Medellin), we inquire about socioeconomic variables such as buying and selling prices, production costs, family expenses, marketing methods, transformation of production, among others. Once tabulated and analyzed the information, we found that the vast majority of the population perceives that middle man as the main cause for not finding improvements in their quality of life. The relationships between the different actors in the production and marketing chain were established by comparing prices of each of the agents, taking as a basis for comparison, the price of the small producer. We found that profit margins are low for the producer, which discourages the permanence of agricultural activities in the long term.

Keywords : agricultural commercialization; vulnerable communities; brokering; agricultural production.

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