Cooperation and Chocolate: The Story of One Colombian Community's Quest for Peace


Plagued by an internal war, a group of villages in Colombia created a “Peace Community,” declaring themselves neutral in the conflict and focusing their efforts on cultivating the 150 hectares of cacao trees in collectively owned plots to sell to global markets. While villagers still experience violence, the earnings from their crops go into a collective pot and the community decides together how to distribute the funds. “To them, this is actually a very profound act of transcending traditional capitalist society models and building something together,” says an anthropologist who has studied the community.

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