Agriculture repeals the food protection areas of Santander and Tolima

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development repealed the Food Production Protection Areas (APPA) declared in San Vicente de Chucurí and El Carmen de Chucurí (Santander) and in eight municipalities in northern Tolima. The measure is contained in Resolutions 000415 of 2026 and 000416 of 2026, both dated November 11, signed by Minister Indalecio Dangond Baquero and published in the Official Gazette 53,687 of the same date.

APPAs are level 2 territorial planning determinants, a figure created by Article 32 of Law 2294 of 2023, which modified numeral 2 of Article 10 of Law 388 of 1997. Their declaration is the responsibility of the Ministry and conditions territorial planning plans, the regulation of rural land uses, and the issuance of urban licenses. The repealed acts are Resolution 000187 of July 2, 2026, in Santander, and Resolutions 000044, 000045, and 000052 of 2026, in Tolima.

Santander: 84,662 hectares without determinant

Resolution 000415 of 2026 repeals the declaration that covered the two municipalities of the Yariguíes province, in the Magdalena Medio region of Santander, with 84,662.61 hectares, equivalent to 41.56% of the combined territory. The area represented 44.31% of the municipality of San Vicente de Chucurí and 38.23% of El Carmen de Chucurí, and had been based on a technical document from the Agricultural Rural Planning Unit (UPRA).

The act warns that the area does not remain unprotected: the level 1 environmental determinants adopted by the Regional Autonomous Corporation of Santander (CAS) remain in effect, as do the Regional Integrated Management Districts of the Serranía de los Yariguíes and the San Silvestre Wetland, the management plans for the Opón and Sogamoso river basins, the Magdalena River Forest Reserve of Law 2 of 1959, and the Serranía de los Yariguíes National Natural Park.

Northern Tolima: eight municipalities and 48,494 hectares

Resolution 000416 of 2026 removes three declarations from the planning that totaled 48,494.47 hectares in the agricultural corridor of the Central Cordillera:

• Fresno, Herveo, and Murillo, with 12,382.14 hectares (Resolution 000044 of 2026).
• Palocabildo, Casabianca, Líbano, and Villahermosa, with 24,409.26 hectares (Resolution 000045 of 2026).
• Falan, with 11,703.07 hectares (Resolution 000052 of 2026).

The surface area was equivalent to 79.73% of the municipal area of Palocabildo and 64.48% of that of Falan. According to the act, the review found no intersection with the one hundred and two protected areas examined in the Single National Registry of Protected Areas, nor any concurrent hydrocarbon contracts.

The technical failures that motivated the repeal

Both resolutions are based on the UPRA technical review document, version 1 dated October 5, 2026, which examined seventeen and eighteen technical matters, respectively. Among the findings are:

• The starting area was the agricultural frontier, described as “preliminary” by the methodological annex itself.
• The polygon expansion rule did not declare the distance used, meaning the model is not reproducible by third parties.
• In Santander, 75.75% of the scope (64,133.64 hectares) overlaps with protected areas and 54.42% (46,070.70 hectares) with licensed hydrocarbon areas, overlaps that were not analyzed.
• In Tolima, agrological classes I, II, and III total only 1,203.76 hectares, 2.48% of the declared area.
• The productive suitability evaluation reported a single category, high A1, without discriminating strategic soils.

Effects and pending procedure

The repeal is effective from its publication in the Official Gazette, meaning the areas cease to produce effects as APPA and as a level 2 determinant. Article 4 of each resolution orders UPRA and the Ministry’s departments to update, within ten business days, the Agricultural Rural Planning Information System (SIPRA), the geographic viewers, and the cartographic layers, and warns that any layer still showing the repealed area must indicate that it lacks legal validity.

The acts specify that they do not modify the planning instruments or the territorial acts validly adopted during the term of the repealed resolutions, and that they do not rule on their original validity, a matter reserved for the Administrative Contentious Jurisdiction. They also order the decision to be communicated to mayors, municipal councils, governor’s offices, CAS, Cortolima, the National Land Agency, the National Mining Agency, the National Hydrocarbons Agency, the National Environmental Licensing Authority, and the Ministry of the Interior.

The resolutions mention two open judicial scenarios: file D-16118 before the Constitutional Court, regarding numeral 2 of article 10 of Law 388 of 1997, and the popular action 25000-23-41-000-2026-01249-00 currently before the Administrative Tribunal of Cundinamarca against the Ministry and UPRA regarding the food protection zones and areas.

The impact is twofold. Legally, a level 2 determinant that conditioned the POTs (Land Use Plans) and the issuance of licenses across more than 133,000 hectares disappears, thereby restoring the full operationality of municipal competencies regarding land use. Productively, it reopens the debate on oil palm, mining, and hydrocarbons in both territories: in Santander, palm is the second-largest crop by planted area, with 7,121 hectares, and in Tolima, the review left the mining coexistence criterion unverified over 6,733.93 hectares in Falan.

Source: Official Gazette, 53,687 of November 11, 2026, p. 12 (official reference: Resolution number 000415 of 2026 and Resolution number 000416 of 2026).