Instability in Colombia
Colombia is one of the world’s largest producers of coffee, with only Brazil and Vietnam producing more beans per year. One of the countries key exports, coffee production, is centred around its more mountainous regions, which span the centre of the country. The map below visualises the most common areas of coffee production. While environmental factors may affect the harvest for the year and overall production, the potential for instability in the region will be a key contributing factor. Colombia faces several key risks which can contribute to regional instability. Warring drug gangs, growing protests and a decades long insurgency by communist guerillas all affect the risk of Colombia’s key commodities.
As these risks can occur, develop and spread at short notice, it is vital to have access to a competent toolkit designed to protect key interests in uncertain regions. Through the use of the Crucible platform, key flashpoints and ongoing situations can be monitored and understood with ease. Crucible contains near real–time data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED). With each incident geolocated and plotted on the basemap, users can quickly identify key areas of risk and subsequently better protect their interests. As an example, focusing on the Colombian municipality of Popayán and the wider Cauca region, risks to commodities organisations can be immediately identified and understood.
From the 17th July to the 8th August, a total of 82 incidents were identified within the Cauca region and surrounding areas. These ranged from protests against the arrest of a former Colombian president and a kidnapping of an off-duty police officer, to armed battles between Colombia’s military and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerillas. Splitting the data into specific dates, it becomes clear that on the 7th August there was a notable spike in incidents. These were notably a series of ambushes set up by FARC guerillas against Colombian military personnel.
For a commodity organisation seeking to invest in the coffee industry in Colombia, the ongoing instability in the Cauca region would present a notable risk to effective business operations. Other regions in Colombia, or South America as a whole, may provide less risk for the successful operation of coffee cultivation. Crucible can provide these businesses with up to date, effective and precise incident data to best protect any current or future interests. Instability within South America can occur at a moment’s notice, with large scale protests and violence not uncommon. To be best protected from this instability, businesses and organisations will need to adopt competent systems such as Crucible to stay informed of any risk of operations, from small scale protest action all the way up to significant armed conflict.
Image 1 source: A map of coffee producing regions in Colombia. Source: coffeegeography.com.
Image 2 source: Screenshot from Crucible® displaying incident data from the 17th July – 8th August 2025.
