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Cooperation and Chocolate: The Story of One Colombian Community’s Quest for Peace
A member of Comunidad de Paz de San José, a “Peace Community” in Colombia, cultivating cacao.
All photos from Operazione Colomba
A community in Colombia is ditching traditional capitalist models in order to build a collective future.
Jan 14, 2021
When it’s time for harvest, Germán Graciano Posso, a 38-year-old Colombian farmer, leaves his village, La Florencita, with a group of co-workers and heads into the hills where the cacao trees grow surrounded by a lush rainforest. Cacao pods the size of giant lemons hang off the trees’ branches: They come in various colors green, red, and purple but tend to turn yellow when they ripen. Posso harvests the fruits by hand, cracks them open with a machete, and collects the grape-sized seeds, which are covered in a white, squishy casing. Then he places the seeds in a wooden box where the casing undergoes a process of fermentation. ....

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