Collaborating closely with regional leaders, local stakeholders, and partners, Ms. Latorre will focus on achieving measurable outcomes that benefit both the people of the LAC region and the planet.

“By building partnerships and alliances with relevant players, we will be able to maximize our impact.” – Lyana Latorre.

“I am thrilled Lyana will lead The Rockefeller Foundation’s efforts to advance people-centered climate solutions for sustainable development across Latin America and the Caribbean,” said Elizabeth Yee, Executive Vice President for Programs at The Rockefeller Foundation. “With Bogotá joining our offices in Bangkok and Nairobi, we are strengthening our collective voice in the Global South and fostering collaborations that align with local and regional priorities, while delivering on global goals.”

Ms. Latorre joins The Rockefeller Foundation as it continues its $1 billion commitment to advance the global climate transition and help ensure everyone can participate in it.

“I am thrilled at this opportunity to consolidate and lead new initiatives for The Rockefeller Foundation in Latin America and the Caribbean. By building partnerships and alliances with relevant players, we will be able to maximize our impact. As someone who is from the region, I am particularly motivated to help scale solutions in communities where needs and opportunities are abundant,” said Ms. Latorre.

With nearly three decades of experience in investment banking, environmental, and social impact, Ms. Latorre spent eight years at Arcos Dorados, the world’s largest independent McDonald’s franchisee, operating in 20 LAC countries and territories. During her tenure, Ms. Latorre served as Director for Latin America Ronald McDonald House Charities before becoming Director of Corporate Social Engagement and member of the Management Team, reporting directly to the Executive Chairman. In this role, she developed and led the company’s youth employment strategy, which was later adopted globally by McDonald’s Corporation. Additionally, she grew Ronald McDonald House Charities programs in the region from 21 to 63.

Ms. Latorre began her career as an investment banker with Bank Boston-Robertson Stephens in Boston and later with Nortel Networks in San Francisco before returning to her native Colombia.

Fluent in both Spanish and English, she graduated Summa Cum Laudea from Colegio de Estudios Superiores de Administración (CESA) with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, specializing in Corporate Finance. She later made history as CESA’s first female board director. A dedicated volunteer, she has contributed extensively to the Colombian Red Cross, Make-A-Wish Foundation, and initiatives advancing animal welfare in Colombia. Currently, she serves on the Board of Ayuda en Acción, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to driving social impact and humanitarian projects.

The Rockefeller Foundation Invests in LAC

With more than a century of investing in the region and convening some of its brightest minds, The Rockefeller Foundation set up its first LAC office during the late 1930s, focusing on improving health and agriculture sectors, developing rural communities, and establishing universities. Although its physical presence in the region ended in the early 2000s, the Foundation’s investments have continued, with ongoing projects across an initial ten countries: Barbados, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Trinidad and Tobago.

In August 2024, The Rockefeller Foundation announced plans to open a new LAC Regional Office in 2025 in Colombia, which comes at a pivotal moment for the region. Home to 669 million people across 33 diverse countries, LAC is uniquely vulnerable to climate change because of its geographic location, persistent inequality, and reliance on climate-sensitive economic activity. According to the United Nations, climate change threatens the lives and livelihoods of 41 million people in LAC.

The region is already experiencing extreme weather events, including mega-droughts, extreme rainfall, heatwaves, rising sea levels, and deforestation. Despite these challenges, LAC is also endowed with valuable natural assets that position it to play a significant role in the global green transition, including an estimated 50% of the world’s biodiversity and a significant share of critical minerals. In addition, when Brazil hosts the United Nations Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30) later this year, it will mark the fifth time in 30 years that an international climate meeting returns to the LAC region.

Headline Image: Lyana Latorre. Photo credit: The Rockefeller Foundation.

While solemnly eulogizing Carlos Holmes Trujillo, Colombia’s defense minister who succumbed to COVID-19 last week, President Duque said “Así lo vi, así lo conocí, así lo querí” which when corrected would translate as “That’s how I saw him, that’s how I knew him, that’s how I loved him.” Querer is a Spanish verb that generally translates as “to want” but is also used informally as “to love,” in the familial, romantic, and fraternal senses. The correct usage of the verb in the President’s instance would have been “quise”— an error often made by foreign learners of Spanish but surprising coming from a native and experienced Spanish speaker.

In a politically divided country where the President already suffers from low approval ratings and struggles to stand outside of the shadow of his pollical patron, former President Alvaro Uribe, Colombians were quick to lambast Duque on social networks, and in the Colombian media. KFC thought they would join in on the fun by posting a tweet and accompanying video saying:

“When the #KFC chick arrives at your house…you can only say #asiloqueri #HappyFriday.”

Both were quickly removed but not before other users were able to save the media.

 

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A post shared by Derroche (@superclic_co)

Many users, especially from Duque’s Centro Democratico political party lashed out at KFC,

Se me hace de mal gusto señores de @kfccolombia . Que se presten a la burla de la mayor autoridad del país . A raíz de una equivocacion que es de humanos. Gracias.

— Juan camilo cubillos (@camilo_cf75) January 28, 2021

while others who oppose Duque said they would now be ordering KFC on the weekend.

Genios. Este fin de semana como KFC ?

— Daniela Mercado Mendoza (@danielamercadom) January 28, 2021

The global fast food chain has no problem ridiculing the politicians in other countries, such as in this image of US Senator Bernie Sanders, but for whatever reason found Broasting* Duque for his gaffe too hot to handle and chickened out.

Así como cuando te niegas a compartir tu pollito de #KFC #BernieSanders #Memes #FelizViernes pic.twitter.com/ygB8U3DkDU

— KFC COLOMBIA OFICIAL (@kfccolombia) January 22, 2021

*Broasting is the technique of deep frying under pressure commonly used for fried chicken by restaurant brands such as KFC, Chick-fil-A, McDonalds & Wendy’s. It requires specialized commercial equipment and for the sake of safety must not be attempted at home or with consumer equipment.

What should KFC have done? Feel free to comment below.

Many challenges exist to turn this concept into reality, however. As with the other emerging markets — and especially the much less developed world — agricultural production and food security has a long way to go in Colombia.

To find out more about the hurdles that both Colombia and the whole world face, Finance Colombia recently sat down with Shay Eliaz, principal at Monitor Deloitte. He was in Medellín earlier this summer at the World Economic Forum on Latin America, and shared his perspectives on the global food situation.

Finance Colombia: What exactly is Monitor Deloitte?

Shay Eliaz: Monitor was one of the original strategy houses, similar to McKinsey and BCG. It was an independent company founded by Michael Porter, so when people talk about “Porter’s Five Forces” and some of the basic strategic frameworks that people use today, that was Monitor. About three, four years ago, Deloitte bought them and combined its strategy practice with that of Monitor to create Monitor Deloitte, which is now Deloitte’s strategy practice.

Finance Colombia: It’s interesting to come to realize that your particular focus, especially with the World Economic Forum, is based on food security and the role of agriculture. What is the work that you’ve done, particularly as it relates the New Vision for Agriculture?

Shay Eliaz, a principal at Deloitte Monitor, was recently in Medellín to discuss food security and agribusiness challenges in Colombia and beyond.

Shay Eliaz: We are the strategic advisor, and this year we delivered two major deliverables. One of them was basically a handbook for countries that are looking to create multi-stakeholder partnerships. These partnerships are really, really important in terms of helping solve problems with complexity and scale that are very hard for any individual government — or an individual company or NGO — to solve by themselves. We believe that multi-stakeholder partnerships will allow you to actually solve those in a much better way.

The other reason we believe in such partnerships is because most people think about the food-value chain in a very, very simple, linear way. People think that the starting point is inputs — fertilizers, seeds, chemicals — and then it moves on to farmers then food producers then retailers and then consumers. But it is a little bit confusing and a misnomer to think about that way.

So what we have done is we’ve helped to map what that ecosystem actually looks like, and it is an ecosystem where all the parties depend on each other. It does include input companies, farmers, food producers, retailers — but there’s actually a big role for finance to play. Nothing happens without access to finance. Nothing happens in that ecosystem without insurance. Nothing happens without telecom. Nothing happens without logistics and transportation. There are so many other critical elements to make food that are not automatically counted because they’re not directly touching the food production itself.

Finance Colombia: The first thing that popped into my head when you started describing that was the important role of the commodities futures market and agriculture futures. It is often demonized as just “speculators,” but the farmers need that futures market. It allows them to plan. It allows them to not just securitize their crops, but to borrow because we have a predictable asset into the future.

Shay Eliaz: Yeah. I think you’re bringing up a great point. Aspects of agriculture have been demonized forever. I mean, part of it is the trading, and obviously that’s part of it. Part of it is around the inputs, and people say, “Well, why do we need, you know, chemicals and fertilizers? Why do we need chemicals to spray on plants?”

Finance Colombia: Well, look at how Monsanto was pretty much treated as the devil by the press.

Shay Eliaz: Absolutely. “Why do we need GMOs?” Well, frankly, the people asking those questions are people that live in the first world. When you think about the fact that there are almost 800 million people who still go to bed hungry each night, they can’t afford to ask the question, “did you spray this to increase the yield or did you not?” Or “shouldn’t we all eat organic?” Well, if you try to eat organic, you can’t feed the planet.

So let’s start with that premise. If you understand that premise, you understand that one of the biggest leaps that we’ve had in productivity and in yield has been due to the introduction of those GMOs. And of the chemicals that we use, of understanding fertilizers and soil health, understanding plant health, understanding all of those aspects. Then you begin to understand that that’s a vital part of what’s needed. Its similar with trading and understanding commodities and understanding pricing and futures. All of those are vital aspects of making a market that works.

So I agree with you. Unfortunately, there are aspects of this market that tend to be demonized without really understanding why they’re important, why they’re actually critical to food security on this planet — which is something that’s becoming even worse because population is growing. There’s an increasing trend toward urbanization, and that means there’s even more pressure on the food system because habits change and you eat more as you move into the middle class in urban centers.

Those needs are not going away. They’re actually increasing, and we need to be able to help farmers, and help the system, work out some of those kinks. It’s a critical part of what the New Vision for Agriculture is working on.

Finance Colombia: What are some of the political challenges?

Shay Eliaz: Part of the problem is that it’s very hard to make long-term decisions when there is incredible uncertainty about what the future holds. In Colombia, for example, as the peace process progresses, the government needs to make clear commitments about its own agricultural priorities. Should you focus on soy, for example? I would say maybe you shouldn’t. Why would you want to compete against the likes of Brazil and Argentina? What would be your odds of actually winning that game?

So there is a tremendous role for the government to play. That’s not necessarily in being a dictator and saying, “this is exactly what you guys are going to do.” But it can be very transparent and clear about its priorities. That will help food producers and food security.

Finance Colombia: In Colombia, the government has its 4G highway project — a huge modernization effort. When we talk about agriculture and we talk about food security, I think about Colombia and I think about how important the transportation infrastructure is. One of the main complaints here from the business sector is that its common to say that it costs more to ship a container from Bogotá to the Atlantic coast than from the Atlantic coast to China. These factors, on the surface, look unrelated to food security. But looking deeper down, they seem vital.

Shay Eliaz: On a macro view, we’re talking about the challenge to increase food production and productivity and yield to address, by 2050, a global population of 9.5 billion, right? The estimates — and they’re fairly conservative — are that we will need to increase food production by about 60%. Juxtapose that with the fact that about 40% of the food that we actually make and harvest today gets wasted.

The related hard infrastructure issue is exactly what you mentioned. You have to be making sure that you have proper roads, making sure that you have proper tunnels and bridges that you can access, making sure that the ports allow you to get goods in and out fairly quickly. Storage is a huge piece, especially cold storage, which is needed to ensure that the crops and the harvest doesn’t spoil.

All of that infrastructure is an absolutely critical piece to ensure that, first of all, you’re able to export, and you’re able to export goods that would actually look good a week or two weeks later when they hit the U.S. But as importantly is to ensure that the stuff that we spent an incredible amount of resources on — both “sweat equity” as well as finance — don’t get wasted. We’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars every year that just get thrown away. Stuff that you spent a tremendous amount of calories trying to put together, now you’re throwing it away.

So, a big part of the solution is not just to increase productivity but to waste less. That would be a huge bump in what we are able to do in order to solve a pretty large problem.

Shay Eliaz talks with Finance Colombia’s Loren Moss at the World Economic Forum on Latin America in Medellín.

Finance Colombia: But in the emerging world, like in Colombia, productivity gains are also need, correct?

Shay Eliaz: If you were able to apply some of what mature markets do today in places like Colombia, you could increase yield by five to ten times. So it’s a huge bump just to take basic practices, basic technology that exists today, and improve yield and group productivity.

I would just make one final note because I think it’s interesting and it’s beginning to emerge as a topic of conversation. Forever the conversation was about yield, but finally the conversation is also shifting to nutrition. How do we ensure that we not only increase output but also actually produce food that helps people have better and healthier lives? There’s a tremendous amount of science now about what people need and what people actually should consume — sometimes up to an individual’s needs.

Finance Colombia: And how that’s even affecting mental health.

Shay Eliaz: Exactly. All of that science is now coming to the forefront, thinking about how we start to develop seeds, for example. So, if you need more potassium in your banana than I do, how do we customize a banana specifically for you so that it reacts well with what you need and provides you with the nourishment you need?

So it is a very exciting time. It feels a little bit like science fiction at times, but to me it’s a great place to go. We are now talking not just about how we increase yield, but how we actually improve the quality of life by having better food.

Finance Colombia: So that is part of the complexity. How to balance the push for better food with the need for simply more food? And the different challenges that exist in different parts of the world?

Shay Eliaz: I often find myself explaining this to people within my firm, or my family, who live comfortably in New York and have never been hungry. “Guys, you don’t understand how the other half lives and what they’re concerned about — and why this whole discussion of local or organic is a completely distorted conversation when so many other people are dying of hunger.” Even within the U.S., there are what we call “food deserts” where you basically can’t get fresh fruit and vegetables. All you’re resigned to eat is McDonalds for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That’s not tenable, and frankly it’s not sustainable.

Because the market is somehow distorted, it’s actually easier for you to get a full meal at McDonalds than it is for you to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. If you look at calories per dollar you spend and how you feel at the end of the meal, it’s much easier for you to be satisfied after a McDonalds meal. So, part of the challenge is that the way things are priced also make it very hard to make the right decision.

It has a tremendous amount of impact. So when we have access to better food, when you have access to food at prices you can afford that’s very, very important. We’ve all seen what happens when food prices go up, and what shocks it creates in an economy, both in terms of economic output, in terms of political stability. A lot of people talk about the Arab spring, and obviously it had a lot to do with the types of governments that were there. But it also had a tremendous amount to do with a huge spike in food prices.

Finance Colombia: Wasn’t it a fruit vendor that started it all?

Shay Eliaz: It was. Exactly. For the poor, the percentage of income that can go towards food is really, really high. It could be 60% to 80% of their income goes towards food. And again, it means that you’re starting to make trade-offs and choices around what you spend your money on. When there’s a spike in food prices, well all of a sudden you don’t have a choice. A lot of the other things go away. You can’t do certain things that you want for your family, and you need to start to ask, “am I paying for electricity or am I paying for food now?

Those are horrible choices to make. But that’s why again, the pricing of food and having the available food where it needs to be consumed, at manageable prices, is a very important part of the conversation.

This interview has been condensed and edited from its original version for clarity and space.

During the celebration of Global Entrepreneurship Week recently, the two brothers Felipe and Juan Pablo Arbelaez, founders of Vive Agro, were selected by Endeavor Colombia as the 2014 Endeavor Entrepreneurs.

Local panelists on the selection committee noticed great potential in the venture of brothers Juan Pablo and Felipe, who shared with the panel those challenges they have faced since launching the company in 2011, when Juan Pablo Felipe and identified the need to provide traditional and fast food restaurants with quality ingredients that arrive ready to use in their recipes.  Since that time, the Arbelaez brothers and their team have continuously offered their customers pre-washed and prepared produce, already disinfected, cut, packaged and ready for cooking or consumption. This innovation significantly reduces labor costs and preparation time, and increases productivity of employees, business efficiency, and allows restaurants and food service outlets to operate with less staff but no sacrifice in quality.

In just three years, Vive Agro became the leader in the Colombian market, and the company is beginning to expand internationally. Additionally, Vive Agro takes seriously its social commitment, by contributing to the strengthening of Colombian farmers.

Vive Agro is headed to the International Selection Panel that will be held in Chile in April of 2015, which will decide whether Felipe and Juan Pablo Arbelaez will be recognized as global entrepreneurs of the year.

Endeavor is a global network created 17 years ago that seeks to create sustainable economic development in the 20 countries where it operates. Endeavor provides services that include domestic and international high-level connections, access to events of entrepreneurship and investment forums, and developing strategic advice aimed at breaking down barriers to growth in business. Endeavor Colombia was founded in 2006 and currently has 47 selected entrepreneurs leading 25 companies which, according to the organization, generate 0.17% of GDP in Colombia and employ more than 8,400 workers.

Finance Colombia’s Loren Moss recently had a chance to speak with Vive Agro’s Juan Felipe Arbelaez to discuss Vive Agro’s key to success and future prospects.

Finance Colombia: Tell me about the concept of Vive Agro.

Juan Felipe: Vive Agro began four years ago. Alongside my brother, we began with an idea to connect the farming community, in other words, the agricultural industry and what is produced on farms in Colombia with the city. We decided that what had to be done was to add value to the vegetables that farmers were planting in the country to be able to pass them on to the final consumers in the cities via large fast-food chains, such as Subway, Burger King, and El Corral.

We realized there was an unattended industry where these value added vegetables, called “freshcut” in the United States, in Colombia, this sector hadn’t yet been developed. There were some initiatives, but they were very artesanal and they did not have the sufficient processing and food handling technology that our customers so we realized that there was an untapped market. We noticed that large multinational companies were coming to our country, companies like the ones I mentioned before: Subway, Burger King, Chili’s, most of these big American companies expressed major interest in entering Colombia. We looked for investors to establish a freshcut facility. This was the first facility in Colombia with the technology sufficient to meet the quality standards that the multinational companies require. So we found the investors, closed the investment deal, and today we have a first-class facility for pre-cut “freshcut” food, with HACCP certifications. These are the certifications for food processing best-practices that our clients demand from us.

That is how we basically got into this industry. My brother and I had a huge interest in developing the agricultural sector, which plays an important role in the development of our country. This sector had been neglected and the government hasn’t paid enough attention to it.

We as consumers are demanding more and more information about the product: What kind of water was used in irrigation? What fertilizers and pesticides were applied? All of this is advancing and evolving the added value produce industry. Nowadays customers are more conscious of what they are buying.

Finance Colombia: It seems very interesting to me. Because the Colombian market is modernizing and companies like the ones mentioned before: Subway, Burger King, they have their standards and their international norms. I saw interviews with some farm owners, where they said that they are now being held to high quality standards, not necessarily meaning that the food was bad before, but that they want uniformity in the products across international markets. Whereas french fries at a McDonalds in Colombia, will be the same as in a McDonalds in Canada, right? So it seems to me that they might ask you guys for potatoes with a specific percentage of starch or something similar and that a company as sophisticated as yours can comply with the demands of those companies that are after markets in different countries, right?

Juan Felipe: That is exactly what we do. As you correctly said: How much starch should a potato have to be placed on one of those chains, or what are the characteristics of a leaf of lettuce so that it can be put into a hamburger? All of those needs and requirements are things we communicate and transmit to the farmers and we train them so that they can produce, complying with the requirements of the customers, and not the other way around which is what happened before in Colombia. Farmers would sell their products without any guidance, would try to sell their products to the distributors or the central wholesale markets, trying to sell their products at very low prices with no standards or traceability at all, the foodservice consumer not even knowing the origin of the product. That is what we were getting practically every day on the tables in our Colombian restaurants. So what we did was to connect the farmers and producers with the needs and requirements of the urban foodservice consumers that were constantly becoming more demanding as the standards increase and as the consumer becomes more aware of what he or she is eating. We as consumers are demanding more and more information about the product: What kind of water was used in irrigation? What fertilizers and pesticides were applied? All of this is advancing and evolving the added value produce industry. Nowadays customers are more conscious of what they are buying.

Finance Colombia: We have seen it with coffee. There is a demand for fair trade coffee and it involves companies treating producers in a fair manner, and they make these sustainable products. They have good labor deals with the farmers. I also imagine that there are companies that want to understand every link of the supply chain, as they say, from the soil up to the oven. They want to know the history and provenance of the food, right?

Juan Felipe: Exactly. You explained it perfectly. That is also what we do at Vive Agro. It doesn’t only take place with the coffee industry, but with us: it also takes place with lettuce, potatoes or carrots where people demand to know what is it that they are eating, how they are eating it and who planted those products—how were they farmed, even what payments they receive, how they were treated—We can safely say that there is a consumer today, pushed in part by social media, who is demanding more from the points of purchase where they buy their food.

Finance Colombia: And how did you catch the attention of Endeavor Colombia? How did they discover you and how was it that you won their accolades?

Juan Felipe: Well, with Endeavor there is a very interesting story. Some of our main partners have been Endeavor entrepreneurs for some years. Ever since we created Vive Agro we have had Endeavor in our minds but we knew that they were a very demanding network and organization and that we had to fulfill many requirements in order to participate in their contest. We first started with contests at a local level. Emprendepais—it belongs to La Fundacion Bolivar Davivienda—had these entrepreneur incubators. We participated in the contest called Emprendepais and didn’t win, but they connected us with Endeavor and they took us and began training and guiding us so that we could participate in their national contest.In that contest, Vive Agro successfully presented to a national panel, but that was only the first step. From there, we travel to Chile in April to compete with other businesses in a global contest.

Finance Colombia: So tell me about the future of Vive Agro? Now that you guys are well established and already have a well known client list, what are the future plans, what are the future innovations with regards to the international markets, exports, new products or new processes?

Juan Felipe: Well, right now we are receiving capital from a new partner,  a very large mutual fund that recently made a significant investment with us. We are beginning the construction of a larger facility with a lot more technology that will allow us to execute an expansionary plan in the entire country. Vive Agro’s objective is to become the national market leader. There is still a lot of available potential, the produce market in Colombia is calculated to be worth 900 million dollars.

 That means that there is still a lot of space to grow here in Colombia, but I will tell you what we have planned for exports. We know that here in Colombia we still have a lot of untapped markets. For example, Vive Agro has no presence in supermarkets, in the retail sector. Another example is the hotel industry, which is undergoing lots of local expansion.

Let’s say there are three vehicles for growth in the company: One is to penetrate deeper with the restaurants we already have as clients. Every day we have more multinational food chains entering Colombia. Two would be entering the hotel market. We of course have a very clear vision of what we want to do in the hotel’s market here in Colombia and three, serving the catering industry: Companies like Sodexo, like Compass Group.

Additionally we want to be in the retail market in supermarkets such as Exito, Carulla, Olimpica, these are the main competitors in the supermarket industry. Further ahead there are clients like Burger King and Taco Bell who are asking us to export to countries that don’t have a supply of value added produce, we are talking about countries like Panama or the Caribbean Islands and us by having a certified facility for Taco Bell for example, we could be providing them with product. So Vive Agro is not only focusing on the national market but it also has a vision to export.

And let’s say, it’s not only about vegetable products but also meat products or other agricultural products in Colombia. Since we already have the supply chain, we would only be adding products to those channels.

Finance Colombia: Between you and me, what frustrates me when I am in Colombia is looking for high quality cheeses. This is my personal opinion, but it is something I miss when I am in Colombia. Finding some good international cheeses, but maybe that’s only one consumer’s demand.

Juan Felipe: But it is true. Here we lack a culture of ripened cheese, we consume fresh cheese but the demand for ripened cheese is very small. Even thought there are some stores that sell these products, the average Colombian consumer is still very basic in his or her knowledge about cheese.

Loren: I am optimistic because I remember ten years ago on my first trip to Colombia there was no wine variety. Gato Negro, Concha y Toro, Casillero del Diablo, and that was it! But this June I visited Expovino and wow! I went there with the Sommelier of El Cielo Restaurant and I can see how everything has changed.

So, what is the investment environment for a company like yours? How do Banks treat you? In a more traditional industry like food distribution is it hard to catch the attention of investors or venture capitalists?

Juan Felipe: Well, it hasn’t been easy to find investors. I think they come to us because we belong to a network like Endeavor which connects you with the funders or the people who can be potential investors for your company. I think that Colombia is still very behind in accessibility for entrepreneurs to investment, especially start-up phase businesses. We at Vive Agro had some startup capital but I know that for some startups it is very hard to find those initial funds. When you have a good idea, Colombian investors tend to wait until you prove your idea can be profitable before they support the idea and invest. If you compare that to the US, we are still very far behind when it comes to having angel investors who support and invest in ideas when these ideas are still only on paper.

I do believe that the right environment is being created so that our country moves forward. I understand that the Colombian economy is driven mainly by small and medium sized companies, and these companies need more help and financial support, and above all, they need managerial help to put them on a growth trajectory.

However, I see that in the last four years this has improved a lot. There is a new dynamic. For example, Fundación Bolivar has been betting on projects like Emprendepais to help the companies that make sense to get started. This builds a network of potential investors and banks that will make the sector grow. So even though I see that we are still very far behind, I also see that Colombia is on a good path. The government has some good initiatives. Innpulsa is an initiative by the government that is worth mentioning. With this initiative, they offer grants to entrepreneurs who start a business. So I do believe that the right environment is being created so that our country moves forward. I understand that the Colombian economy is driven mainly by small and medium sized companies, and these companies need more help and financial support, and above all, they need managerial help to put them on a growth trajectory.

Finance Colombia:  True, and the government has some agricultural programs to promote development, or what your company is doing with the agricultural sector?

Juan Felipe: Yes, yes. There are a couple of things, For example, we now have the financing of Finagro, which is a state owned entity that helps farmers, especially with crop finance. However, there still is the need for a stronger presence from the government in our financial institutions as well as in the agricultural sector. It is not easy for the banks and the government to open up completely to the agricultural sector, so although there are good initiatives, there are also many restrictions as to the capability of a farmer to find financial support and loans. As I said, I think we are on the right track, but we are still far behind. Colombia has a true agricultural potential. Here we have the right weather conditions, we have the water, we have the mountains, we have the valleys, and then we ask ourselves: How is it that Peru and Ecuador are ahead of us? What have they done differently than us? Aside from the fact that they don’t have a military conflict like we do; they have surpassed us in agricultural technology and in the importance that their governments have given to their agricultural sectors.