Multistakeholder analysis in cocoa and livestock food systems in Caquetá, Colombia

This document presents the structure of actors that drive the cocoa and livestock value chains in the municipalities of Belén de los Andaquíes and La Montañita, in the department of Caquetá, Colombia made in the frame of the WP3 of Mitigte +. This characterization was carried out through the actor mapping technique (ACM), which made it possible to identify the levels of cooperation in the links of the agri-food chains and the social capital available for the exchange of goods and services. Based on this methodology, we identified two elements for each value chain: first, the actors that cooperate in each link with their respective capitals and, second, the typologies of social capital expressed in bonding, bridging, and linking relationships.
The analysis was complemented with the building of social networks obtained from participatory workshops that made it possible to visualize and measure the structure of the relationships among actors. The structure of the networks was analyzed through metrics such as the network size, density, and degree centrality. The size of the network refers to the number of nodes or actors that are part of the network, while the density of the network refers to the number of connections or links between the nodes. The degree of centrality of the network refers to the importance of the key nodes or actors in the network.
Our results highlight how, while in the case of cocoa, both international cooperation agencies and government organizations that promote this sector are multiple and varied, the same does not happen with sustainable livestock farming, where the promotion actors at both the national and international levels are less diverse and permanent. Additionally, despite producers’ efforts to make investments to transform production practices, cooperation networks do not guarantee their sustainability. Grassroots producers’ organizations are the actors that contribute the most to the sustainability of the value chains and, therefore, their strengthening is crucial to achieving sustainable cocoa and livestock systems.