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Family Farming38 almanaCthe Sugar marketGovernmental negligence, the shortage of investment policies in the agricultural sector and the lack of road infrastruc- ture are some of the difficulties facing Colombian small-scale farmers, com- pounded by conditions of underdevel- opment and unfair competition from the huge wave of imported products en- couraged by free-trade agreements.All this supports the need to improve the quality of the product in the face of falling urban consumption of pan-ela and the lowering of its price on the market. The drop in demand is however due largely to changing food habits in the urban classes, who pre- fer to consume artificial sweeteners, carbonated drinks and other types of products. Plus, there is a psychologi- cal factor, with the well-off city dwell- ers seeing panela as being too humble a product.Behind the hygiene issue lies a much bigger factor, in which the big produc-© Archivio Slow Food • © EloyquiroS • © PhyxiuSonE • © BArBAriSSimA