## 1 Introduction
### Context  
The central region of Colombia encompasses 5 administrative departments: Boyaca, Cundinamarca, Meta, Tolima, and Huila, and the Bogota Capital District as a special administrative unit. Table 1 shows the composition according to population (according to figures from the most recent population census in 2018, Colombia has over 48 M habitants [17]):  
Figure 1 illustrates the population distribution according to the areas of the region and provides recent figures of the agricultural production. Bogota is the most densely populated municipality, with more than 200,000 habitants per square kilometer, followed by Cundinamarca with between 100.1 to 200 inhabitants per square kilometer, and, Boyaca, Meta, Tolima, and Huila with between 50.1 to 100 inhabitants per square kilometer. The population of the Central Region of Colombia is estimated in approximately 2.1 million inhabitants (14% of the country), of which 75% are rural. The region concentrates 26% of the agricultural production of the country (agriculture, livestock, hunting, forestry, and fishing). The central region has a wide variety of climates. The Andes cordillera that runs south-north splits the central region in three sub-regions: The hot and humid valleys in the west, the mountainous area in the central part, and the semi-arid plains in the east. The mountainous region itself presents a wide variety of ecosystems: Dense cloud forests, high plains, and semi-deserts to name a few. These climates create an excellent environment for agricultural activities. The central region of Colombia, in terms of the agricultural economic activity, contributes with approximately 30% to the GDP of Colombia. This contribution has remained relatively \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline
**Department** & **Population** & **\% Colombia** & **\% Region** \\ \hline Bogota D.C & 7,181,469 & 14.9 & 50.3 \\ Boyaca & 1,135,698 & 2.4 & 8.0 \\ Cundinamarca & 2,792,877 & 5.8 & 19.6 \\ Meta & 919,129 & 1.9 & 6.4 \\ Tolima & 1,228,763 & 2.5 & 8.6 \\ Huila & 1,009,548 & 2.1 & 7.1 \\ Totals & 14,267,484 & 29.6\% & 100\% \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: The central region in figures. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline
**Department** & **Production (Ha)** & **\% Colombia** \\ \hline Rice & 185,688 & 15.9\% \\ Corn & 167,086 & 22.0\% \\ Potato & 121,632 & 4.4\% \\ Sugar cane & 66,074 & 16.1\% \\ Plantain & 52,025 & 9.0\% \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Hectares cultivated and production of the main products of the Central Region. constant in the last 15 years. The central region produces 26% of Colombia's food. The main agricultural food products are potato, plantain, rice, sugar cane, and corn. Table 2 shows the total hectares planted and the agricultural production in tons in the central region. This information was compiled from [18]. According to data from the latest available National Logistics Survey (2018) [19], the operating and logistics costs of the agricultural industry in Colombia account for 12.8% of the final price (below the national average which is 13.5%), where the main components of such operation costs are storage (35.9%), transportation (33.3%), overhead (27.7%), and customer service and other costs (3.1%). A factor that contributes to the reduction of storage costs is to improve inventory turnover (in days), according to the same survey [19]. The agricultural industry reports 11.8 days of inventory in raw materials and agricultural supplies and 24.4 days in finished product, while supply days are 20.5, and in distribution, 16.7. Likewise, in terms of transportation costs, reducing the traveled distance can clearly contribute to the reduction of operating costs. In the Colombian agricultural industry, trucks and other cargo vehicles average 2744 km/month on intercity journeys and 2066 km/month on urban journeys. In relation to the quality of deliveries (deliveries on time, error-free documentation, and so forth), for the agricultural industry the performance rate is around 79.8%, which can be considered very low [19].