Cooperatives of Puno invest 900.000 euro on a modern coffee plant

Monday, February 8, 2010

The Central of Agrarian Coffee Cooperatives at the Sandia Valleys (CECOVASA) inaugurated a modern coffee processing plant with an investment of 3 million and 500 thousand soles (900.000 euro). The purpose is to improve its export competitiveness guaranteeing the high quality of its special coffees. With these special coffees, CECOVASA has been winning several international and national coffee quality contests.

The coffee processing plant includes modern facilities with capacity to process up to 200 thousand quintals, which means the aromatic grain production of the whole region. The investment was possible thanks to the extraordinary effort of the coffee producers and the associated eight cooperatives and thanks to the funds build with the profit made through the fair trade market sales. CECOVASA supplies its coffee already 10 years to the fair trade market. With this investment CECOVASA is looking to reduce costs, improving selection of its coffee grains and strengthening efficiency and competitiveness. The opening´s ceremony of the plant took place on Saturday January 23th counting with the presence of the local authorities and representatives of the coffee cooperatives at the Sandia Valleys.

CECOVASA was founded 40 years ago with the purpose of accessing the international market directly, offer technical assistance and canalise credits to the region family enterprises growing coffee, most of them from quechua and aymara origin. The associates include more than 4.900 farmers cultivating 12 thousand hectare.

The processing capacity of the plant is 6 metric ton per hour. It is installed about 350 km from the production area and occupies 10 thousand square meters. From this point, the processed coffee goes directly to the Callao harbor.

The operation of the new processing plant will benefit by saving the “false freight” of the shipment to Lima. It will also generate employment for the relatives of the coffee producers who become specialised in the industrial process and the maintenance of the machines and equipment of the plant.

Challenges and threats
Agustín Mollinedo Trujillo, president of CECOVASA, said at the inauguration ceremony that the coffee producers of the region face huge difficulties such as lack of safe roads, difficult access to the production areas and lack on property titles which make our product expensive to market. “Despite the huge difficulties, we continue going forward and winning space on the market”, said the president of CECOVASA. The production areas are located 300 km away from Juliaca from where the transportation takes more than 24 hours.
 
César Rivas, president of the National Coffee Board, highlighted the efforts of the coffee producers of the region to improve their competitiveness and at the same time win awards for the quality of their product. He drew attention to the risk this important investments have.  “These efforts require the total support of the national and regional government. They should not be ignored by our politicians”, said the coffee producer´s leader.

On the other hand Rómulo Pizarro, director of DEVID and participant in the opening ceremony, praised the effort of the coffee cooperatives integrated by quechua and aymara families and he compromised to manage the duty facilities regarding the withdraws the cooperatives give to their associates at the end of the exploitation period, which are at this moment bounded by the SUNAT.