Colombia Rice Farmers Face Push Toward Cashew

Dangond told growers in Urumita, in La Guajira, that rice consumes too much water and is too exposed to weather shocks in the Caribbean. He argued that cashew fits local soils and climate better and could deliver returns above 24%. That is a direct challenge to the economics of rice farming in the north of the country, where water availability is often the limiting factor and climate volatility has become a larger business risk than it used to be.

The timing matters. Fedearroz has been warning that 2025 and 2026 harvests are coming in under pressure from poor commercialization prices and El Niño-driven productivity losses. In other words, the minister’s pitch is not arriving in a healthy market where farmers can absorb change gradually. It is arriving in a stressed sector already asking for support.

The dispute also widened after the ministry ordered a forensic review of resources administered by Fedearroz, including money tied to import auctions and the sector’s parafiscal levy. The ministry says those funds total more than 552 billion pesos over 15 years, money it argues should have done more to improve infrastructure, productivity and climate resilience. Fedearroz says it is open to scrutiny but notes the funds are already audited by state watchdogs.

For investors, the bigger story is that agricultural policy is becoming more about capital allocation. If the government is serious about steering farmers away from rice in the driest, most climate-vulnerable areas, that could reshape input demand, irrigation spending and the economics of rural credit over time. It also raises the odds of political friction with an established industry that has long depended on public support.

The market implications are not limited to Colombia. Higher climate risk and lower water availability are making crop selection a core investment issue across emerging markets. Across the broader food chain, the winners are likely to be growers and agribusinesses tied to more efficient, higher-margin crops; the losers could be rice producers, millers and any lenders exposed to farms that cannot adapt.

In the long run, the lesson for investors is simple: resilience is becoming more valuable than tradition. Whether cashew truly displaces rice in Colombia’s Caribbean depends on financing, extension services and farmer adoption, not just ministerial rhetoric. But the direction of travel is clear enough to put this on the watchlist. In agriculture, the crops that survive the climate and the cash-flow squeeze tend to be the ones that compound.