After decades of internal conflict, the 2016 peace deal opened up new opportunities for prosperity in Colombia. Currently the country has the 4th largest economy in Latin America. There is huge biodiversity with 40 million agricultural hectares, of which only 8 million ha are currently being used for crops. It has rich water resources and is capable of producing a wide range of crops throughout the year. Only traditional crops such as coffee and rice have solid production chains established, however both yields and profits have room for improvement. Associativeness, transformation, scalability, technification and supply chain issues remain some of the biggest constraints to effective agriculture development.
The expertise required in Colombia includes (but isn’t limited to):
- Logistics Platforms (information, artificial intelligence, crowdsourcing, logistic services)
- Credits (Microfinances, financial funding in Colombia)
- Insurance (production losses- floods, winds, droughts, pests, productivity, prices, employees)
- Irrigation of Tropical Crops (fruit trees, open-air vegetables, greenhouse)
- Production in Cities (vertical urban farming)
- Waste Utilization (compost, biogas, biomass)
- Agricultural Management Software (fertilization, diseases, accounting)
- Analysis of Images of Tropical Crops (cell phones, drones, satellites)
- Artificial Intelligence (Algorithmic companies for tropical crop studies)
- IoT Sensors with Algorithms to obtain information on tropical crops
- Technologies in packaging foods
- Post-harvest Machinery (washing, peeling, packaging)
Selected businesses will attend Connect Agro Summit UKCOL in March 2021, an online event that has been designed to connect UK businesses and Colombian organisations to accelerate innovation.
In 2020, KTN supported the delivery of an Agri-mission to Colombia where 16 UK businesses built strong collaborations and commercial partnerships with Colombian organisations. Building upon the success of this, KTN is working with British Prosperity Fund Colombia and Colombian partner Agrilink to deliver Connect Agro Summit UKCOL on 17-25 March 2021. The event will include:
- Summit (17th-18th March)
This will focus on the UK Agri innovation landscape and recent success cases of UK companies working in Colombia.
- Business roundtable and one-to-one meetings (17th-25th March)
UK businesses will be carefully matched with Colombian businesses and organisations for between 5 and 10 one to one meetings during the week. A translator will be provided.
- AgriTalks (23rd-25th March)
UK businesses will find out about the Colombian landscape, the core challenges, the opportunities that exist and the solutions currently required from Colombian agricultural stakeholders.
UK businesses will have the opportunity to do a 30 minute presentation, with questions and answers, to a Colombian audience.
KTN is looking for 15 UK businesses to participate in this summit, so to find out more about this opportunity, click here to sign up for the Information Webinar on 2nd February from 3-4pm. The deadline to submit interest is 5pm on 9th February. Successful applicants will be notified within one week.
If you have any questions about working with CHAP, please send us an email using the enquiries form at the bottom of our homepage.
