CauQueVa

Organizational Vision
Citizen Base Strategy
Results

Organizational Vision

The purpose of the Cooperativa Agropecuaria Artesanal Unión Quebrada y Valles (CauQueVa) (Artisan Agrarian Cooperative) is to improve their members’ living conditions, based on the production and sale of ancestral products as well as their fruit and vegetable production.  They assert, "We want to recover ancestral practices and regain value to improve Colla small producers’ life standards."

Citizen Base Strategy

Relate the production to the reigning culture in order to establish its differential market value.

Although the Quebrada de Humahuaca has been a major Center of Genetic Origin, domestication, improvement and multiplication of Andean crops including corn and potato since the 1940s, other activities -mainly horticulture- have grown to fill their position. This process was strengthened in the 1990s and then collapsed at the threshold of the new millennium. Against this backdrop, the cooperative formed by small producers -most of whom are Colla-made a regional diagnosis and decided to start producing original crops in this area, introducing technological developments to their ancestral practices. This process helped them to give new value to their culture and protect bio-diversity while improving the quality of their products and reducing production costs. The cooperative has developed a quality protocol by selecting the best practices followed in the area to produce the Andean potato, in order to get the certification of their agrarian practices. Regarding the development of new technologies, the organization is working with the School of Agrarian Sciences of the University of Jujuy on issues related to plague control and the use of rhizobacterias for the best development of their crops.

Evaluate the possibility of facing new projects and alliances according to the existing management structure

CauQueVa has been able to launch a brand to trade the Andean potato as a gourmet product in high-income circles, to sell it in the country and to start exporting it.  The cooperative is working to preserve the Andean potato with the aim of identifying those factors that helped this product to exist till our days. Moreover, they have introduced integral strategies to adapt their production to the new market demands.  It is important to highlight that the project can be replicated in the case of other original crops such as corn, quinoa, amaranth, yerba mate or manioc. Drawing on their own experience, the cooperative organizes training programs for other producers on planning and how to improve production and commercialization processes.  Further, in order to re-value the Andean culture, they have opened the “Museo de la Vida Campesina Quebradeña” (Museum of Peasant Life in the Quebrada) and they are planning to open an Andean food restaurant. 

Extend learnings to the civil support network

CauQueVa is incorporating small producers from Salta and Jujuy through their training courses and field visits. Such initiatives have helped them to show that if they get together with other producers, with similar cultures, and establish common production conditions, they can sell their products in markets which are new and have usually been hard to enter. CauQueVa encourages an attitude welcoming feedback to improve producers’ training programs. Irrespective of the specific income obtained by the sale of their production through the cooperative, producers are offered machinery, permanent training, advice and credit lines. They also establish a continuous mutual nurturing process between the different areas of the cooperative in order to capitalize the lessons gained in their daily activity. 

Their products, as a result of the brand development, have found their commercialization niches leveraged by advertising campaigns in the provincial and national media and promotions in specialized TV channels (Gourmet channel).  CaQueVa also succeeded in contacting Slow Food through a buyer of their products who suggested them contacting this international organization. Slow Food shares the cooperative’s goals, since it promotes artisan productions and small agriculture. In 2002 they were finalists of the Bio-diversity Award granted by this international organization. Since then, the organization contributed with funds for publications and ideas to encourage and improve their activity. It also offered them access to an international network of organizations with similar aims.

In the same manner, CauQueVa tried to build a link with the Inter American Development Bank to spread its project. The strategy was based on an integral production proposal to raise funds in order to finance the technical cooperation, production and commercial strategy and on opening a credit line for their low income producers.

Results

CauQueVa generates new job opportunities for producers based on the growing market for the Andean potato.  It has stimulated production in diverse regions, previously considered unsuitable.  As a result, CauQueVa has protected a vital resource for the region. By re-identifying the population with original products, it was able to stimulate both new supply and demand, ultimately creating a new local economy. Simultaneously, this new, integrated production system strengthened links with the indigenous history of the region.  It has reinvigorated ancestral solidarity and community practices such as the Minga, a tradition whereby community members cooperate to sow and harvest the crops, culminating in a community party, now held by the CauQueVa members.