"It is better to work peacefully within an association and to do it as true brothers & sisters"

Gregorio was born in Potos� and has lived in the Cochabamba tropics for 18 years, in the union of Villa Israel, district IV.

"I left Potos� because its poverty was overwhelming. It is well known that agriculture and work are scarce, and that is why I decided to seek new horizons, search for a new life, and with the blessing of God I arrived in the Chapare, and remained here" he says.

"Here in Chapare life meant suffering, the food was bad and there were mosquitoes as well as more sickness. There were no health care centers or roads; it was very hot and the climate practically suffocated you... Now, we see there has been a change".

When Gregorio arrived in the Chapare, he started as a laborer and like everybody in those years, worked for somebody who had a piece of land. Once he learned to use the machete and the grub hoe, he started to cultivate products such as bananas and then became a partidario (sharing the land of others).

"To be a partidario implies working for the owner of a plot who cannot manage it by himself so you become part of this piece of land. You have to share the work, and in exchange he gives you half of the cultivation, which is sold and shared again in halves. However, as a partidario you have to contribute, cleaning and looking after the crops" Gregorio explains.

Upon his arrival in the Chapare, Gregorio cultivated coca. "No reason to lie, when I first arrived in the Chapare, I harvested coca leaves, though I did not know how to do it properly because my hands were not used to this heat. I had just left a cold climate. Later on, I got used to it and my hands turned like a crowfoot, very thick".

Gregorio found out that the area where he lives is highly suitable for growing bananas.

"At the beginning, when the coca leaf boom arrived along with its problems and uncertainty, we decided to better ourselves and began to look for a piece of land. The truth is that I did not have any means to buy a plot so we got together among several partidarios and organized to acquire a piece of land".

"We started looking for the name we would give to our union and I had liked the six-day war that Israel won so we named it Villa Israel, because we will become winners".

"I got tired of being herded like a sheep, subordinated to objectives that will never be achieved. Therefore, it is best to work peacefully within an association, one having legal production and a future".

Gregorio is one of the boosters for the implementation of the next Convention of Farmers of the Cochabamba tropics. The Convention seeks to plan activities collectively in order to address problems more effectively, he said. "As a single association and scattered about, we do not have the necessary strength to solve our problems", he says.

At present, the associations of farmers of the Cochabamba tropics are not integrated with coca producers. Hence, farmers have decided to join forces and establish the Federation of Associations.

Gregorio sent the following message to his peasant companions from all the unions in the Chapare:

"The Federation of Associations will not exclude any producer whose agricultural is legal and apolitical. To us, every farmer from the tropics is our companion, our brother. I also wish that the comrades who up to now have been producing coca would join us".