Who we are
A corporation born in the territory
We are not outsiders coming to "help" the countryside. We are part of the territory: we were born in the La Cacica district of Zapatoca, and we exist so that the peasants of Santander have a technical and institutional arm of their own.
CIDERT — Corporación Integral para el Desarrollo Rural y Territorial — is a non-profit based in Zapatoca, Santander, registered with the Bucaramanga Chamber of Commerce, with its own tax ID and public bylaws. We work within the framework of Peasant Agri-Food Territories (TECAM): the recognition of peasants as a collective subject of rights, with autonomy over their territory, production and way of life.
Our role is to manage what communities need but cannot process alone: partnerships with municipalities, universities and international cooperation; ecological restoration and environmental monitoring projects; market access for the network's products; and the training and dialogue spaces where the territory learns and is held accountable.
La Cacica is the pilot district: CIDERT was born there, and that is where we want to test each method first — water monitoring, native-species nurseries, a collective brand, training — before extending it to the rest of the network. None of these is implemented yet: we are seeking the resources to start. What works in La Cacica will be documented and shared with Zapatoca's other 26 districts through the Territorial Roundtable.
The end goal is not for CIDERT to grow as an organization, but for the network of Zapatoca's districts and associations to become a replicable model: first a pilot municipality for Santander, then a reference for peasant-led territorial management in Colombia.
La Cacica rural district · Zapatoca · Santander
"We are the technical instrument of Zapatoca's Peasant Agri-Food Territory — the network that turns community sovereignty into projects, partnerships and enforceable rights."
