The migration of young people to urban areas in Colombia, driven by limited jobs and education in a context of violence, represents not only a demographic shift but also a labour challenge for rural communities. In response, grassroots initiatives have emerged that encourage young people to remain in the countryside or to return. El Convite Campesino, a young peasants’ association in Boyacá, Colombia, does this by practicing agroecology, building local markets and offering new types of jobs with a vision rooted in food sovereignty.
Young peasants’ innovative ideas are essential in the agroecological transition. They contribute to ecologically and socially driven farming, building peace within communities and with the environment, which is highly relevant in Colombia. At the same time, agroecological systems generally require higher labour inputs, which young people can provide. These are the reasons we launched an initiative to keep youth in farming.
El Convite Campesino
El Convite Campesino is a peasant association founded during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2019 by young peasants from Arcabuco, in the central Boyacá department, and students from Universidad Externado de Colombia, based in Bogotá. I was one of these students. During the pandemic, several of us moved back to our family homes in the nearby city of Tunja. The organisation was initially created to support peasant families in Arcabuco with the sale of agricultural products in Tunj as their produce had accumulated due to mobility restrictions and curfews.
Young peasants collected maize, potatoes, vegetables and fruits from peasant families in the region and packaged these in boxes. We, in turn, promoted the boxes through our personal networks, organised delivery routes in Tunja, and were responsible for distribution. All profits were transferred to the peasants, and prices were set based on what both the peasants and the students considered fair relative to local market prices in Tunja.
As the initiative consolidated, the pandemic passed, and curfews were no longer the primary motivating factor, we expanded our scope. Through a new subscription system, consumers received a box twice a month containing products selected by the peasants, with the option to change up to three items. This process not only enabled higher profits for farmers and created a collective fund for the association, but also helped establish a system in which farmers’ relatives were paid for delivery services rather than relying on unpaid students. In addition, we were able to reduce the labour burden associated with collection and packaging by establishing a delivery schedule and a fixed product variety.
Reflections on income and diets: The need for food sovereignty
This increased stability also enabled us to collectively reflect on two key issues. The first one: whether this form of trade truly offered an economically viable alternative to the traditional system with a middleman. From an economic perspective, the direct sale of products through food boxes alone was insufficient to enable farmers to earn a fair income. Therefore, we concluded that until the market expanded, a combination of traditional intermediaries and direct sales remained necessary.
An inventory revealed that most peasants indeed had a very limited diet
Second, consumers valued that most products were organically produced. However, not all of them were, and the variety of food in the boxes was limited. As a result, consumers began to drop out because it was too much hassle to combine the food box with purchases at the supermarket. So, we, the peasants and students of the organisation, began to reflect on how to improve the quality and diversity of the boxes. From this reflection, a more structural issue emerged concerning the peasants’ diets. If the peasants were unable to offer a greater variety, were they themselves also either relying on purchased food to maintain a nutritionally balanced diet or experiencing significant dietary deficiencies?
An inventory revealed that most peasants indeed had a very limited diet. It was based primarily on potatoes they grew themselves, eggs and milk from their own animals, and the purchase of rice, coffee, salt and occasionally meat when they could afford it. These findings led us to consider the need to build food sovereignty among peasant families using agroecology as a framework.
Peasant-to-peasant exchange of agroecological practices
In El Convite Campesino, agroecology is primarily considered as a technical, social and scientific method to ensure a diverse, nutritious and sovereign diet for each family. Only secondary is it viewed as an economic approach to generate surplus production that can be sold.
Each farm within the association practices agroecology in its own way, according to its specific context. For example, some farms are characterised by highly diversified systems and low dependence on externally provided inputs and machines such as tractors. In contrast, other farms cultivate one commercial crop using externally sourced organic fertilisers, mulching practices and the sporadic use of chemical pesticides, alongside smaller, organically managed plots dedicated to household consumption, with small quantities of a diverse range of vegetables and fruits. These farms often use crop–livestock rotation systems with potatoes, livestock grazing and maize. This diversity among farms provides a basis for collaboration and mutual learning through a peasant-to-peasant methodology, where everyone has valuable experiences.
Informally, during association meetings or other social gatherings, peasants exchange advice on farm-related challenges such as pest management, animal mortality or plant nutrition. The association also creates spaces for these exchanges to take place in a more structured manner through a form of cooperative work known as a convite, from which it takes its name. At least once a month, the entire association is invited to collaborate on one member’s farm, carrying out whatever agricultural tasks are required. In the afternoon, a collective reflection surfaces lessons learned during the day. This reflection is guided by questions about what can be learned from the farming experience and how knowledge is exchanged between younger and older generations.
Convites are also social events with shared meals prepared from ingredients from various farms. Collective cooking provides an opportunity to exchange recipes, seeds and traditions that elders hold and young people may learn. In our experience, these gatherings are also moments to challenge traditional gender roles – such as women overseeing cooking while men work in the fields – and to engage in political discussion, particularly around local government policies on rural development that often conflict with peasant interests.
Paid work for young people
In addition to convites, we organise workshops. Some of these are facilitated by peasants and former students who co-created El Convite Campesino, while others are led by peasants from different regions of Colombia or by professionals specialising in areas such as soil management or agroecology monitoring. These activities are supported by three subsidised projects.
Collective cooking provides an opportunity to exchange recipes, seeds and traditions that elders hold
In addition to supporting the workshops, these projects have secured payments for other young peasant members of the association. For example, young peasants trained as graphic designers, social media managers or photographers have assumed responsibility for managing the association’s social media and are now compensated for their work. Similarly, accountants carry out administrative tasks for which they are paid.
In this way, young peasants who initially migrated to urban areas to pursue education in these fields are being drawn back to their hometowns. They find new roles that are not traditionally recognised as peasant labour. At this moment, four young peasants and one former student who co-founded the association are employed on a permanent salaried basis. In addition, all young peasant members volunteer for occasional administrative or logistical tasks, and some receive intermittent payments for specific duties directly related to the association.
The diversification of farm agrobiodiversity, direct selling of surpluses, and learning through convites and workshops enable local young people to reduce costs of farm inputs while increasing food sovereignty and income through a combination of new revenue streams and knowledge.
Land rights challenges
At this moment, El Convite Camepesino consists of 85 associated families on 85 different farms located in the municipalities of Arcabuco, Cómbita and Chíquiza, Boyacá. Approximately 50 of them are represented by young peasants, and they have received diverse materials to build nurseries, water harvesting systems, bioinput production facilities and other types of infrastructure.
Despite having toiled the land for generations, almost no one in the association holds formal property rights, mainly due to the limited capacity of the judicial system that is responsible for land titling in Colombia. This weakens their confidence in continuing to invest labour and resources in their farms.
In an effort to address this issue and redistribute land to peasants, the Colombian state attempted agrarian reforms in 1936, 1961 and 1994 and is currently pursuing a fourth reform. The previous three efforts failed largely because large landowners used both political lobbying in the national congress and armed violence to obstruct their implementation. The current reform is similarly suffering from the power and influence of large landowners.
Moreover, putting all the association’s activities into practice is not easy. Agroecology is not possible without strong community organising, and sustaining El Convite Campesino requires significant commitment. When combined with farm work and care responsibilities, organisational duties become overwhelming for many members, especially women. For this reason, financial compensation is necessary for individuals who can dedicate themselves full-time to the association. While we secured some payment from projects, the last one is ending this year. The association needs a long-term income stream.
Additionally, the box scheme urgently requires the association to have its own means of transportation. Currently, nearly 40% of the food’s selling price is attributable to truck rental-related delivery costs. This makes the products relatively expensive, which could be avoided with a self-owned vehicle.
To conclude, El Convite Campesino offers viable, locally embedded solutions to halt youth rural-urban migration by promoting agroecology. Grassroots initiatives like these enhance food sovereignty and promote new, emerging jobs. However, structural changes in land ownership, more financial support, and coordination between state policies and peasant organisations remain crucial for continued success in the face of Colombia’s old legacy of land concentration and violence.
Author: Francesco Londoño (26) is a Colombian geographer, activist and co-founder of El Convite Campesino. He is currently working as climate finance specialist with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome. Contact: francesco.londonomedina@gmail.com
Sources:
- Pardo, R. (2017). (Working paper). Diagnóstico de la juventud rural en Colombia (pp. 1–49). Santiago de Chile, Chile: RIMISP.
- Fajardo, D. (2002). Para sembrar la paz, hay que aflojar la tierra (1. ed.). Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Instituto de Estudios Ambientales.
- ANAP, CITMA, & OXFAM. (2016). Metodología de campesino a campesino. ANAP.
This article is part of Issue 4-2026: Youth leading the way in agroecology.
