Bill 287.

Summary.

The bill creates the Trapiche Route in Panama as a tourism, cultural and food circuit connected to producing communities, rural tourism and the tradition of making raspadura. It defines the route as a journey through areas that produce panela, or raspadura, and related products, where visitors can learn the product’s history, observe how it is made and taste it. It identifies producers, communities participating in the route, local tourism operators and visitors interested in Panamanian culture and food as beneficiaries.

The Panama Tourism Authority (Autoridad de Turismo de Panamá, ATP) is responsible for implementing, promoting and maintaining the route in coordination with the Ministry of Culture (Ministerio de Cultura) and the Ministry of Agricultural Development (Ministerio de Desarrollo Agropecuario, MIDA). The circuit includes production centers offering demonstrations; museums and interpretation spaces covering the history of sugarcane, panela and related products; food fairs and festivals; points for direct sale and marketing; and training workshops for producers and visitors. These activities connect producing areas with places where visitors can observe, learn about and purchase the products included in the route.

Artisanal producers of foods derived from sugarcane, including panela or raspadura, who are registered within the route could access training and technical assistance programs, financing and subsidies to improve production, partial tax exemptions, and support to promote and market their products nationally and internationally. The bill also provides for greater flexibility in obtaining sanitary registrations so that small traders can sell their products in businesses within and outside the country. These benefits are framed as forms of access available to registered producers.

To publicize the circuit, ATP, together with MIDA and the Ministry of Culture, develops national and international promotion strategies through advertising campaigns, tourism fairs and collaboration with travel operators. The bill provides for mechanisms to monitor and evaluate the Trapiche Route’s economic, cultural and tourism impact, with a view to its sustainability and benefits for participating producers and communities. It directs the Executive Branch (Órgano Ejecutivo) to issue regulations within no more than six months of promulgation and provides that the law would take effect upon promulgation.

The public bodies connected to the proposal are the Panama Tourism Authority, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Agricultural Development and the Executive Branch. Its provisions could interest or affect producers of panela and other sugarcane products, small traders, tourism operators, communities in producing areas and visitors in Panama.