Further testimony comes from the archbishop-viceroy Caballero y Gongora (1787) who registered the presence of the crop in the north east of the country near Giron (Santander) and Muzo (Boyaca) in a report that he provided to the Spanish authorities.

In 1808 the first commercial production was registered with 100 green coffee bags (60 kg each) that were exported from the port of Cucuta, near the border with Venezuela.

After hearing the confession of the parishioners of the town of Salazar de la Palmas, he required as penance the cultivation of coffee.

The great expansion that the world economy underwent at that time allowed Colombian landowners to find attractive opportunities in international markets.

The production of these sectors went into a period of decline when the respective bonanza of their international prices terminated, hence a true industrial consolidation was prevented.

As if this was not enough, the Thousand Days War, which took place during the first years of the new century, also negatively influenced the important landowners, making it impossible for them to maintain their plantations in good conditions; this circumstance summed to the fact that these producers had incurred in large amounts of foreign debt in order to further develop their plantations, which finally ruined them.

In the first decades of the 20th century a new model to develop coffee exports based on the rural economy had already been consolidated, supported by internal migration and the colonization of new territories in the center and western regions of the country, principally in the departments of Antioquia, Caldas, Valle, and in the northern part of Tolima.

The cultivation of coffee was a very attractive option for local farmers, as it offered the possibility of making permanent and intensive use of the land.

Under this productive model of the traditional agriculture, based on the slash and burn method, the land remained unproductive for long periods of time.

Although this new breed of coffee made of country farmers demonstrated a significant capacity to grow at the margin of current international prices, Colombia did not have a relatively important dynamism in the global market of this product.

The union of local farmers and small producers around the Federation permitted them to confront logistical and commercial difficulties that would not have been possible individually.

[11] The National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia is a non-profit business association, popularly known for its "Juan Valdez" marketing campaign.