Colombia's fighters become coffee farmers

Rebels replace bullets with beans - 23rd May 2022

'Tropics – Fruits of Hope' is the inspirational name former rebels in Colombia have chosen for their new venture – a premium coffee. 'Fruits of Hope' is cultivated, harvested and roasted by more than a thousand guerrilla fighters who finally hung up their arms following a peace treaty between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the government in 2016.

One of those rebel fighters, Antonio Pardo, is an attendee at the annual London Coffee Festival to market 'Fruits of Hope', a special edition marking the five year anniversary of the peace accord. The guerrillas-turned-coffee-growers are keeping their fingers crossed that it'll equal their 'Spirit of Peace Ex Combatants'. That blend distinguished itself by earning the 'Best of the Best' accolade at the Ernesto Illy International Coffee Awards in 2019.

These coffee farmers are among practically 13,000 former FARC guerrillas who've enlisted in the Colombian government's process of reincorporation into civilian society. Instead of concealing their backstories, they frequently make a virtue of their unorthodox entry into the labour market, alluding to it in their products' names. One of the beers they brew is entitled 'La Trocha', or 'the trail', in recognition of the tracks forces used to criss-cross the Colombian jungle.

Antonio Pardo, currently in Britain from the coffee plantations of Cauca, speaks unashamedly of his past life. Although he joined the FARC insurgents at 18, when studying sociology in Cali, these days he's a fervent supporter of peace and his fellow combatants are, by and large, like-minded.

In his rebel cell, made up of 50 militants, he explains that everyone embraced the peace process. It brought to an end the decades-long conflict, in which 260,000 individuals perished. "There came a point at which we recognised that the majority of people in our country wanted an end to the violence."

Andrés Felipe Stapper is head of Colombia's Agency for Reincorporation and Normalisation. He explains that getting local communities on board as co-participants in the rebels' reintegration has been fundamental to the policy's overall success.