The fique ecosystem is still sustained by remarkably resilient communities. Cabuya production is the engine of a grassroots, campesino economy that withstood industrial substitution and is reinventing itself today.
National cabuya production is concentrated in departments such as Santander, Nariño, Antioquia, Caldas and Boyacá. National figures have reported more than eighteen thousand hectares under cultivation, farmed almost entirely — around ninety-five per cent — by families of vulnerable socio-economic background and of indigenous or campesino descent.
What share of the country’s fique is grown by campesino and indigenous families?
- 18,000
- Hectares under cultivation reported nationally
- 95%
- Farmed by campesino and indigenous families
- 5
- Departments concentrate production
That figure defines the character of the sector. Fique is not an agro-industrial crop: it is a family-economy crop, organised not around large plantations but around thousands of small units scattered across hillside land, where the labour is the family’s own.
Santander: the fique provinces
In Santander, fique is an ancestral and sustainable crop, fundamental to the department’s economy. It is concentrated in the provinces of Guanentá and Comunera — Mogotes, San Joaquín, Curití, Aratoca and Onzaga — where it represents the livelihood of thousands of campesino and artisan families.
This territorial concentration produces technical proximity: the municipalities share varieties, tools, vocabulary and buyers. That informal learning network is one of the sector’s least recognised assets.
The origins and the golden age in Aratoca
Working by hand
The people of the area cultivated fique and processed its long leaves by hand to extract the fibre.
What is made today
- Decorative crafts
- Display pieces, table mats, basketry and objects for the home.
- Bags and mochilas
- The fastest-moving product commercially, in strong demand among visitors and urban markets.
- Rugs and table linen
- Larger pieces, demanding a loom and long working hours.
- Alpargatas and other useful goods
- Traditional footwear whose braided sole keeps a highly specialised technique alive.
The pressures that still limit the sector
Despite the cultural richness of the trade, the sector faces complex pressures worth naming precisely, because any public policy or strengthening project depends on that diagnosis: heavy dependence on intermediaries, who capture the margin and disconnect the artisan from the final price of their piece; low levels of formal employment, in predominantly family workshops with no contract and no record of time or costs; and the need to diversify the product, because dependence on the costal ralo keeps the sector tied to a low-price market under heavy synthetic competition.
What pressures limit the fique sector today? Select all that apply.