The Anthropocene crisis, characterised by the overshooting of planetary boundaries, poses significant challenges for food-producing communities, especially in less developed countries. Industrial productions in the primary sector, fostered by global demand, not only increase CO2 emissions, but also cause negative effects to rural communities by competing with lower production costs, fostering territorial displacements, increasing rural and urban polarisation, and disrupting local culture and social cohesion. To overcome this situation, it is needed to take into account the cultural and educational conditions of rural populations, considering the key skills that allow the actors of neighbouring sectors to interact profitably. In this context, a coherent strategy of integration of tourism with the primary sector can strengthen the recovery and resilience of communities and generate good practices for ecosystem protection. Nevertheless, in conflict and post-conflict contexts, local governance often proved undermined by the power vacuum caused by threats and violence. This case study, based in post-conflict areas of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, investigates alternative strategies to enable civil society to overcome government weakness, by supporting local policies through community participatory planning not only to strengthen the value chain in the food sector, but also to enable sustainable production, regenerate the capacity for local self-sufficiency and position the food products in the links of the tourism value chain.