Colombia’s President Asks to Restructure FNC, Issues Ultimatum: Withdrawing the Contract with National Coffee Fund
Colombia’s President Asks to Restructure FNC, Issues Ultimatum: Withdrawing the Contract with National Coffee Fund
Bogota (Coffee Network) - Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro said the Coffee Growers Federation (FNC) must be restructured, and if this restructuring does not materialize, Petro issued a forceful ultimatum: he would withdraw the shared contract with the National Coffee Fund.
Petro said it is necessary to restructure FNC because it is unsustainable to have salaries worth COP200 million pesos/month, and costly rents such as those of the NY office.
“If the national federation of coffee growers is not restructured according to the coffee base, the contract of the national coffee fund will end,” Petro said noting that he can resemble what former president Juan Manuel Santos did when he ended the cattle fund.
Speaking from the coffee-producing town of Pitalito in the Huila province Petro raised a question: "I have a problem, the National Federation of Coffee Growers, what do we do?" He asked the gathered peasants.
The president complained about the high salaries that the Federation's executives are receiving and expressed the need to receive support to solve this problem, since this private institution, rooted in the history of the coffee world, have salaries of up to COP200 million/month (US$50,000).
“This is a private institution and have salaries such as those of (state-controlled oil company) Ecopetrol. A coffee grower earns COP12 million/year. How much makes the president of FNC? COP200 million. That cannot happen,“ he said.
In addition, he criticized the rent of expensive buildings such as the one in New York, which is not consistent with the representation of the coffee union.
"It must be a genuine representation that reflects the reality of peasants and small producers.”
The president addressed the issue of how the country's coffee economy fell into oblivion, in contrast to the negative image that Colombia acquired during the 1980s due to the cocaine boom.
“If you go to any corner of a big city in the world, unfortunately they don't call you coffee, but 'Pablo Escobar'. Pablo Escobar replaced coffee, symbolically, because in these last 50 years the riches were other: the illegal, that we know (drug trafficking) and the legal ones became oil and coal. All three work the same way. But they are capturing income due to high international prices several times above the cost of production, which generates a transfer of wealth from the world that consumes these products to the country,” he said.
Colombia managed to export $6bn worth of coffee in 1965 and 1975, but Colombia exported $12 billion worth of coal in 2022 and $32bn in 2012 and about $15 billion in cocaine.
“If I sum up all those figures that reaches $66bn/year compared with $6bn in coffee export revenues in the best year,” he said.
He said the previous government did not pay much attention to coffee but focused on the extraction of oil and coal.
In Pitalito, Petro announced the renegotiation of the free trade agreement with the US. “Replacing corn with Colombian corn I would generate about 1.2 million more jobs, that is to say: wealth, but I can't do it because of the US FTA,” Petro said.
Petro said he seeks the industrialization of the coffee sector with an empowered state-controlled Agrarian Bank.
Petro said Colombia’s is today the world´s fourth largest coffee producer, but it was a time it was a second largest- coffee producer and Colombia should recover that ranking, without providing solutions to increase output.
Petro like the Finance Minister did not say if the coffee growers federation will receive funds for renovations and other programs.
Today, the National Coffee Committee of the Coffee Growers Federation (FNC) in Colombia, a highly-awaited meeting, ended without announcements. The Finance Minister declined to give comments to the press, and FNC did not issue a release, in a new sign that there is no agreement between the two parties yet.
The meeting began early today, while ended at 11:30 a.m. local time. Coffee Network was reporting from there, but the minister stood journalists up, who were waiting outside FNC. The National Coffee committee was attended by the minister of finance Ricardo Bonilla but not by the new minister of agriculture, Jhenifer Mojica, who is accompanying president Gustavo Petro in a meeting with coffee growers in the Huila department, the province with the highest coffee production in Colombia, accounting for almost 18% of total output.
Analysts have said that the government is seeking the control of the national coffee fund and change the new head of the coffee growers federation German Bahamon, and until he does not take the helm of FNC, the government may not want to disburse funds to the coffee growers federation.
"If the government does not recognize Fedecafé, it is a very wrong position as he has to respect organizations such as Fedecafe. It is a clear ignorance of one of the most important production unions in the country,” Oscar Gutierrez, director of Coffee Dignity said. “This generates more problems to Petro, who does not have enough favorability among Colombians. It is an additional problem for Petro,” Gutierrez said.
Coffee Dignity said Petro must allocate sufficient funds to resolve the economic crisis of low coffee prices. “It is urgent that the government alloctes sufficient resources to attend to the losses of coffee growers, put a stop to coffee imports, attend to the needs of the cooperatives, and specify the changes that are necessary in the institutional framework to recover their coffee and lack support,” Coffee Dignity said.
The distance between Petro and FNC
This division between Petro and FNC began earlier this year when Petro tried to stop the election of the new general manager of FNC, which was defined after four months of work and interviews with the different candidates. When Bahamon was elected, he questioned the election with a twitter claiming: “This is the new president of the Federation of Coffee Growers. I thought it was time for dialogue and common construction. I will dialogue with their regional grassroots organizations,” he warned.
From there the division was maintained, so that later in a meeting in Sevilla (Valle del Cauca), he again questioned the Federation and the manager, stating: "While we know the names of great bureaucrats with illustrious surnames directing the Federation, we did not find the name of a pensioner farmer".
Although the coffee growers, through the manager, have sought to meet with the president, the national president has kept his distance from the union and his warning to make profound changes.
By Diana Delgado
