Alto Beni, Yungas, Bolivia

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Alto Beni, Yungas, Bolivia
Best Practice Marketing for Communities in
Mountainous and/or Drug Crop Producing Regions
Chiang-Mai, Thailand, November 24-25, 2005
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Bolivia
A country of statistical extremes, landlocked
Bolivia is the highest and most isolated country
in South America. It has the largest
percentage of indigenous people, who make up
around two-thirds of the population, and is the
world's largest producer of tin.
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Facts

• Population 9.1 million (UN, 2005)
• Capital Sucre (official), La Paz
  (administrative)
• Area 1.1 million sq km (424,164 sq miles)
• Major languages Spanish, Quechua, Aymara,
  Guarani
• Major religion Christianity
• Life expectancy 62 years (men), 66 years (women)
  (UN)
• Main exports Soybeans, natural gas, zinc, gold,
  silver, lead, tin, antimony, wood, sugar
• GNI per capita US960 (World Bank, 2005).

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Illicit Crop Production in Bolivia

• The Law 1008 defines three areas of production
• Traditional, located mainly in Yungas of La
  Paz
• Transitional with excess coca production,
  covering virtually all coca plantations in the
  Cochabamba Tropics (known as the Chapare) and a
  few areas of recent colonization in La Paz and
• Illegal, covering the rest of the national
  territory.
• The coca crops in the Chapare are declared to be
  in transition and are subject to eradication and
  alternative development.

Law 1008 authorizes coca plantations in Yungas of
La Paz of up to 12,000 hectares for the purposes
of acullicu (chewing of coca leaves) and other
traditional uses.
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The YungasTraditional Coca Production Area

• The Yungas is the largest coca growing area in
  Bolivia
• Topography mountain ranges transversed by one
  small road.
• Climate Subtropical moist broadleaf forest.
• Long history of traditional coca cultivation.
• Colonization started in 1953 after the agrarian
  reform and therefore each community in the
  project has a different background.

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ALTO BENIOverview

• Geographic location
• Department of La Paz
• 270 km from the city of La Paz
• Provinces Caranavi, Sud Yungas, Larecaja
• Climatic conditions
• Average temperature 25C
• Average Rainfall per year 1.800 mm
• Average Humidity 70-80
• Altitude 450 to 2.500 masl.
• Difficult access
• Only one road exists in and out of the region
  the Yungas Road, also known as the Deathline

Originally known as "The Grove's Road", named
after the U.S. company that built it in the early
seventies, this lifeline--some say it's more of a
'deathline'--to the tropical lowlands is reputed
by many world travelers to be the most terrifying
drive in the world. 
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ALTO BENIHistory

• Colonized in the 1960s.
• The colonists had small farms and belonged to a
  government-run cooperative.
• With the cooperatives bankruptcy, the farmers
  were left without marketing resources and had to
  turn to intermediaries to transport their
  products along the difficult route to La Paz.
• In general, these farmers received unfairly low
  prices for their products because they lacked
  knowledge of market prices and intermediaries
  often paid very low prices.

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The goal of CICAD/OAS projects in the Alto Beni
since they started in 2001, is to dissuade
farmers in the region from engaging in illicit
coca growing by promoting legitimate
income-generating activities and creating
infrastructure.
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Cacao Project

• Modernization of the Organic Cacao Industry in
  Alto Beni, Bolivia

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El Ceibo

• In the 1970s, many farmers began to see that the
  government-run associative system was problematic
  and created their own cooperatives.
• In order to maximize their marketing power, some
  of the cooperatives united in 1977 to form El
  Ceibo. This new cooperative joined the Fair Trade
  system in 1997.
• Today El Ceibo includes around 37 smaller
  cooperatives. The goals of El Ceibo are to
  improve the living conditions of the members and
  increase crop diversity and productivity.

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El Ceibo (cont.)

• A federation of 37 cocoa producing cooperatives
  in the Alto Beni region.
• It is one of the strongest and most successful
  economic organizations in Bolivia.
• It also stands as one of the most successful
  cases of small farmer organization around
  technology generation, product transformation and
  marketing in the Andes.
• El Ceibo has been able to open new markets for
  its products, adapt product transformation
  techniques to these markets and develop
  technology in support of its marketing strategy.

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Training
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Production practice and strategy

•   Small producers, with an average cultivated
  surface of less than one hectare, group together
  to work their land communally. This allows them
  to cut production and transport costs and gives
  them strength to stand up to local middlemen,
  often referred to as coyotes.

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Production practice and strategy

• Producers establish a fair buying price
  based on 2 main criteria
• 1. Fair remuneration for the producers
• 2. A price that allows them enough profit to be
  able to invest in their organization and in
  communal projects such as schools, bridges,
  hospitals, drinking wells, etc. These in turn
  contribute to the regions sustainable
  development.

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Production practice and strategy

• Because of the need for daily cash, many of the
  farmers have been diversifying their production
  with crops such as coffee, citric fruits, bananas
  and dried fruits.
• First cooperative to convert to organic
  production, gain organic certification and
  process its own cocoa.
• The cooperative has developed its processing so
  well that the farmers are already exporting their
  own cocoa butter and cocoa liquor and selling
  their own chocolate domestically.
• Many members work in both the agricultural and
  processing sectors, giving farmers extra
  opportunities to develop skills that will help
  them remain competitive in the market.

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Banana Project

• Rehabilitation and Modernization of Organic
  Banana Production in Bolivia for the Export
  Market

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Bana Beni SRL.
Established in 2003. This farmer-formed company
handles marketing of all the fruit produced by
the Project and has its office in El Alto. But
at the beginning nothing was easy...
More than 450 Small Producers Associated
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Working Practice and Social Impact of Bana Beni

• Hired an outside General Manager, plus 6 staff
  members from the ranks of the producers, for
  positions in management, administration,
  accounting and banana produce ripening and
  storage.
• Obtained the Organic Production Methods
  Certificate by Skal International, a recognized
  international certifier of organic products.
• Farmers are paid for the banana production a
  higher price (67 family labour) than the current
  market price, which is democratically fixed by a
  committee. Therefore, farmers are expected to
  pay above average wages to their workers.

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Increase in Income with Bana Beni

• Direct Impact 73 increase in income per capita,
  per year, for beneficiaries
• Indirect Impact 38.5 increase in income per
  capita, per year, for non-beneficiaries

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COMPARISON BETWEEN BANANA PROJECTS
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Future Opportunities for Bana Beni

• Expansion to other markets
• Regional Argentina and Chile
• International Germany and Japan
• Opportunity to join international trade
  organizations such as the Fair Trade
  International Organization in Europe (With the
  FLO certificate) and the Transfair Organization
  in the United States.
• High possibility of entering the agro-industry
  with other products made from the organic bananas
  such as plantain chips, dried bananas and banana
  flour cookies.

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CONCLUSIONS

•  The projects have assembled farmers around a
  common development and business-oriented agenda.
• One of the notable outcomes has been the
  increased confidence in international
  agency-sponsored development activities. This is
  an important achievement, since prior to the
  projects implementation farmers living in
  Bolivia were skeptical of activities that
  promised direct assistance since they often
  failed to deliver.
• The main benefits of the projects are felt in
  the communities in the zones with highest
  propensity to produce coca.