Colombia’s agriculture minister, Indalecio Dangond, told farmers on the Caribbean coast not to plant rice and urged them to grow cashew instead, putting a minister’s crop advice against growers’ losses and the needs of communities dependent on rice production. Whether that advice will become government policy remains unclear: the ministry has published no plan.
“We have been working at a loss for two years,” said Alci Cortés of the growers’ movement Dignidad Arrocera. He estimated that 60 to 70 percent of growers had lost money. Those farmers are being told to leave a crop behind while the costs of producing it, and the decisions shaping its market, remain beyond any one grower’s control.
A minister’s prescription
Dangond made his remarks in Urumita to farmers from La Guajira and Cesar, where growers face a two-year price slump and a dispute with his ministry. “Rice is no longer a business. Don’t plant rice, rice is not a business. It is very risky, it needs a lot of water,” he said, according to El Colombiano.
Infobae quoted Dangond saying rice prices “are very volatile,” leaving farmers able to sow on good hopes and harvest into lower prices. He named cashew, coconut, oil palm, pomegranate and plantain as alternatives for La Guajira. “Plant once and think in 25 years,” he said, contrasting permanent crops with rice, which requires fresh investment every six months.
The numbers show the squeeze. In Huila, paddy rice fetched about 230,000 pesos (about US$69) per carga in November 2022, Diario del Huila reported, citing Cortés. A carga is 125 kilograms of unmilled rice. The price later fell to 169,500 pesos (about US$51) and stood near 193,200 pesos (about US$58) in late September. Cortés put the break-even price at 208,000 to 209,000 pesos (about US$63).
Dearer fertilizer added about 1.2 million pesos (about US$360) to the cost of a hectare in 2026, Cortés said. He linked a partial price recovery to lower supply after weather cut output in some areas. Fedearroz, the national growers’ federation, said on 29 September that irrigated sowing had fallen about 30 percent as rivers ran low.
The cost of leaving rice
Huila grower Martín Vargas told Caracol Radio that the region has suitable land and mills built for rice. About 2,500 producers there sow some 47,000 hectares each semester, he said. Julio Roberto Salazar, a Conservative who chairs the lower house farm committee, said producers should not be told to abandon a strategic crop. Senate vice-president Alejandro Ocampo noted that cashew can take five to seven years to mature.
Former president Gustavo Petro, who left office in August 2026, called Dangond’s advice “miserable towards the people of Colombia” in a post on X. He argued that cutting cereal output would increase the risk of hunger if devaluation and drought occurred together.
In Tolima, grower Juan Pablo Rodríguez told Caracol Radio that farmers must rethink crops before rice imports become duty-free in 2030. The report said rice prices in neighboring Ecuador neared US$50 a quintal after a 39% jump. Tolima had about 4,870 rice growers in 11 municipalities, according to departmental figures cited by Caracol Radio on 4 October 2026; fewer plantings combined with El Niño could tighten domestic supply in coming harvests.
A review, but no answer
Fedearroz asked the ministry on 29 September to help refinance growers’ debts after low prices in the 2025 and 2026 harvests. The federation said millers in Casanare raised paddy prices only after about 80 percent of the crop had been sold. The ministry had given no public answer to the refinancing request.
The ministry also ordered a forensic-style review of funds managed by Fedearroz, El Colombiano reported. The funds total about 552 billion pesos (about US$167 million) from import auctions and a farm levy over 15 years. Board chair César Augusto Saavedra said the federation was open to any review and noted that the Comptroller General’s office, the state audit body, already checks the funds yearly.
Growers in Huila and Tolima sought a round table with the ministry, millers and Fedearroz, but no meeting date had been announced. No direct Fedearroz reply to Dangond’s remark had been reported by Sunday evening. Farmers are left with the losses, the crop risks and an unanswered request for debt relief, while the minister’s advice remains just that: advice, with no published plan behind it.