Performance of agri-food organizations in the Colombian Central Region supplying food to Bogotá

Abstract

The city of Bogotá requires approximately 2.7 million t of food products annually, of which 84% comes from the territories associated with the Central Region of the country (Bogotá, Boyacá, Cundinamarca, Meta, and Tolima). Small agricultural producers, who supply food to the main urban centers through intermediaries, are now targeted by a new marketing strategy promoted by the district. The objective of this strategy is to transform agroredes (organizations of small agricultural producers, in Spanish) into participants in the food market in the city of Bogotá. However, these organizations need to enhance their operations; measuring their performance is fundamental for this purpose. The objective of this research was to assess the performance of 60 agroredes in the Central Region of Colombia using the organizational performance index (OPI). For this, a quantitative, transversal and descriptive research was carried out, evaluating agricultural organizations across various dimensions, including administration and finance, associativity and network management, marketing, information and communications technology (ICT), management and logistics, and storage. The organizational performance of the agroredes in the Central Region of Colombia is currently in a consolidation stage. The performance dimensions that have been identified are associativity and network management. However, the most significant challenges are found in ICT management.