Our foundation goal is to work with communities in countries from which we source our fruit, to help create sustainable futures.
Ecuador is one of those countries, and we first worked with CARE in 2006 on an initial 12 month project, PROMESA, which laid the foundations for local markets to sell the organic produce of the communities in Morona Santiago. The impact of that initial year was encouragingly positive, so a further three years of funding was committed in 2007. They also suggested the Fortuna Project, in the Northern Regions of Carchi and Imbabura, so we agreed to support this second programme too.
FORTUNA will also last three years and aims to generate a culture of quality in production and consumption, by linking local prickly pear producers with international import companies. It aims to address the two historical and recurring problems in the northern region of the country, poverty and exclusion, and in turn allow the producers from the Afro-Choteño community obtain a fair price for a quality product.
CARE are one of our biggest partners, and a pioneering organisation since over 90% of their 13,000 employees are locally employed. It gives them an in-depth knowledge of local issues, cultures and languages in the 70+ countries they operate in. They aim to tackle poverty with a holistic vision, one that addresses the underlying causes of poverty, rather than to simply focuses on its symptoms.
The Chota valley people are mostly black and of African descent. The majority were brought to the Chota valley as slaves during the colonial period, particularly when many of the great sugar estates were owned and organised by the Jesuits.
The new FORTUNA project is intended to invigorate the economy of the Afro-Choteño communities in northern Ecuador by promoting activities related to the production, transformation and commercialisation of the prickly pear.
Since the dollarisation of the Ecuadorian economy, the agricultural sector of the entire Ecuadorian population has seen a severe downturn, due to a fall in prices of their produce, coupled with a higher cost of labour. These elements are compounded by the serious erosion and deterioration of the ecosystem, making it nearly impossible to carry out normal agricultural production (with adequate levels of productivity).
The project is working with 38 Afro- Choteño communities, in two provinces (Carchi and Imbabura) to find alternative crops with which to overcome the economic crisis. The prickly pear fruit (Optunia Ficus) was chosen as it is one with significant nutritional and economic value, and easily produced on marginal land and in deteriorated ecosystems like the Chota Valley.
The Afro-Choteño population does not currently have the ability to access national and international markets, and are limited to delivering their products to local intermediaries.
This is where the Fortuna project really aims to help, with the active and authentic participation of small farmers and the organisations that represent them, in addition to the involvement of responsible private enterprises.
Objectives Update : August '07
In the first year of funding, the overall objective of Fortuna was to establish a collection centre. So far, a formal agreement has been signed with the Federation of Black Communities of Imbabura and Carchi (FECONIC) and with the Black Family Research Centre (CIFANE) who act as a network for and provide technical assistance to the 38 black communities of the Chota region.
It has seen full participation from the communities and consequently this encouraging progress:
- Processes are now in place, which will enable the project to capitalise on experiences and create a permanent learning process.
- The area of land for the Collection Centre to be purchased in September 2007 has been agreed upon. It is 4,500m2 and located 300m from the village community of Mascarilla.
- The potential products to make from the prickly pears have been agreed upon, and the focus is on the cosmetic sector, specifically shampoo and hair and body gel.
Challenges
The main obstacle faced during the first six-month period was the difficulty in finding a suitable plot of land on which to set up the prickly pear collection centre. Analysis of the differing costs and locations was carried out and it was agreed that the land must be near the producers and the main communication routes in the area. Although the land was to have been purchased in this initial first six months the deeds were finally signed at the beginning of September.
A major change to the project is that research into the processing of the prickly pears was done in-house rather than by contractors, with Ramiro Moncayo utilising his expertise in this area. This has been welcomede and is being carried out in collaboration with FECONIC who are receiving separate additional financial support from the IDB (the Inter-American Development Bank) and the IAF (Inter American Foundation). As a result of this research the teams involved took the decision to use the prickly pear leaves to create shampoo and hair and body gels.
By doing the research in-house, money allocated has been saved and will be added to the funds for the construction of the collection centre and the processing of the prickly pear.
www.careinternational.org.uk