Two months ago, President Gustavo Petro was in an area of the Colombian Caribbean eating a fish stew, made by a women's association, minutes before speaking of the national emergency due to the long rainy season.
Since the day it declared the emergency, on November 1, the government has said that the La Niña phenomenon is putting the country's food security at risk, either because many crops are flooded, or because many roads are damaged and food they cannot reach multiple regions.
The Government insists that part of the short-term solution lies with the groups of women who make these sancochos: the country's community pots.
He announced then, on December 28, that 117 billion pesos were allocated to finance some 600 community pots,
in order to feed 60 thousand victims.
Since Petro estimated in November that the rains would go until February or March, it was decided that the money should reach the pots until that third month of this year.
But now there is an initiative in the Ministry of Agriculture that could support them for much longer, after the rains end.
Community pots are citizen initiatives in which a small group of people donate various foods, and their time to cook, with the aim of feeding their community or vulnerable groups.
They can cook a sancocho de gallina, arroz con pollo, or an abundant plate of beans, but the purpose of the pot is also social: cooking and eating together is a way of bringing communities closer.
The pots were strengthened when the pandemic started at the beginning of 2020 and many people who could not work were left without food.
They multiplied even more during the 2021 protests: the pots took to the streets and fed hundreds of protesters and vulnerable groups who found a hot plate of food.
"The first line would not have lasted even a week without the support of the community pots," the director of the National Network of community pots, Rudolf Solano, told EL PAÍS.
The organization brings together 51 community pots in 17 of the country's 32 departments.
During the 2021 protests, Solano says, they were triple: 157 pots.
He explains that community pots are usually ephemeral: without stable institutional support from the private or public sector, they depend on the will of a citizen group that wants to contribute a few ears of corn or some plantains.
That is why there are few that manage to sustain themselves in the long term.
“We are very satisfied that the Government pays attention to community pots, because Colombia is a country where there is plenty of food but many people do not know how to get it,” adds Solano.
“And we find it very valuable that you see us as part of the solution to the emergency due to the rains.
But it is also difficult for them to look at us only for emergency situations, because we are not alone for that, we also build a social fabric and contribute to peace in the territories”.
Solano knows that the Government, through the National Risk and Disaster Management Unit (UNGRD), is already financing at least 91 pots in areas affected by extreme rains in the departments of Cauca, Antioquia, and the flood zone. of the Colombian Caribbean known as La Mojana.
As the director of the UNGRD, Javier Pava, explained to EL PAÍS, to receive this support, the organizations had to present to their unit the number of people they could feed, and if they met transparency and hygiene standards, they would receive a budget according to the number of people they feed.
The first pots that received resources from the Government, at the end of December are in La Mojana, where the Government wants to carry out an agrarian and environmental reform but has met with the opposition of several cattle businessmen.
There, in the municipality of Magangué, is Gina Guerrero as director of the Association of Entrepreneurial Women of the Township of Pansegüita (Asomujep), a group of 23 women who are now cooking 120 or 130 daily breakfasts and lunches for victims.
"This is the first time we have made a community pot, but with this government initiative we saw an opportunity to support the community, because here it is true that many crops have been lost," says Guerrero.
"And the truth has been of high impact, because before here there was a kit that lasted 2 or 3 days, but now there is food guaranteed for three months and hopefully later we will be supported with a second part of the project."
The community pots consulted by EL PAÍS have very different budgets, depending on the number of people they feed: some may have 18 million pesos approved for three months, another 135 million for the same quarter.
The resources are delivered in biweekly payments and verified by the UNDGR.
Although the initial objective was the victims of winter, there are more vulnerable populations that need a hot plate.
Yolanda Dajomé led her first pot this Friday, with 14 other women, in the municipality of Roberto Payán, in southwestern Colombia, where several armed groups are present.
“We expected 60 people, 85 arrived. Many are people affected by the clashes throughout the municipality, I think the majority were people displaced by violence,” she explains.
Winter left the municipality cut off by road, but food insecurity is generated not only by the rains but also by violence.
“We are displaced from the violence and the winter wave,” she adds.
The Petro Government has managed to temporarily conquer the palate of hundreds of people with these subsidies and there is an initiative for the pots to last a little longer than the winter emergency.
Rudolf Solano, the director of the National Network, told EL PAÍS that they have had two meetings with the Minister of Agriculture, Cecilia López, for "the formalization of community pots and gardens in the country."
The details of that formalization are not yet known, but López spoke briefly about the issue on La W radio at the end of December.
She does not want "to lose the sense that it is the community that is making the effort" to cook, she said to explain that the Government wants to appropriate these initiatives.
But she added that the president has insisted on finding how to support the pots, and that she is already seeing what can be proposed soon to Congress.
Solano is optimistic.
He says that the possibility of community pots receiving sustained resources in the long term is on the table.
He also says that the Minister "puts soul, life and heart into this project."
The idea is to have a draft by the end of January, share it with various groups in February, and present it to Congress in March.
By then, according to the forecasts, the emergency due to the rains will have ended.
But Petro's sancocho to strengthen his network of community pots in the long term is just beginning to cook.
Subscribe here
to the EL PAÍS newsletter on Colombia and receive all the latest information on the country.