COOPDESAM

Alternative Development Cooperative of Samaniego

The Office of the United Nations on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) came to the help of COOPDESAM to propose the establishment of table tomato cultivations in green-houses in order to generate income at the level of the cooperative, hence, the farmers. A way was sought to provide sustainability for the farmers so that they could, with time and the help of UNODC, be autonomous and self-sufficient.

COOPDESAM received help from UNODC between September 2001 and December 2003 in the framework of the Alternative Development Project called “Assistance to the Activities of Cattle Farmers of the National Alternative Development Plan – AD/COL/00/F31.”

Assistance was delivered through the construction of a substitution process to substitute illicit poppy cultivations through the generation of productivity-, organizational- and commercialization activities, which permitted the farmers to get involved in legal production activities. To this end, the project assisted the cooperative with approximately US$ 400.000, which financed the eradication of about 50 hectares of poppy cultivations and included the following 4 components.

Systems of Production:

Thanks to the assistance, 28 productive units (56 hectares) had initially been established under the integrated systems of agricultural production in which many cattle farming activities (cattle-feeding, dairy farming and breeding of guinea pigs), as well as agricultural activities (agroforestal setup of tree tomatoes, beans and blackberry) were incorporated whilst keeping in mind the necessity of offering marketing opportunities to the farmers. During previous phases, the project’s strategy, which involved the growing of table tomatoes in greenhouses, was implemented and accounted for 60 units of each 250 square meters of cultivation.

Organizational Strengthening:

With the help of UNODC, a second-level cooperative was formed that linked 5 first-level organizations of the municipality of Samaniego and one of the La Llanada municipality. This cooperative took up responsibility to give technical and social assistance to the linked farmers via professionals that were directly linked to the organization. In addition, this cooperative accepted responsibility of the marketing processes of some of the products that were produced by the farmers that participated in the project.

Agro-industry and Marketing:

The investments made under this component of the project permitted the establishment of marketing channels for some products. The cooperative managed to sign a business agreement with the supermarket chain Carrefour. This agreement allowed for the selling of more than half a ton of high-quality, loose tomatoes weekly in the shops which the said chain operates in Cali (Calle del Cauca). In addition, the cooperative acted as a distributor and sold about 3.5 tons of tomatoes weekly on the regional and local markets. Finally, the farmers that benefited from the implementation of the integrated production systems which incorporated cattle-farming activities could market the produced milk with the help of the cooperative to provide for the local market as well.

Monitoring and Follow-up:

The investments made under this section financed the costs of a team of professionals that, next to offering technical assistance, provided information about the technology and financing of each of the products linked to the project. The received data of the activities was managed by an information tool (AGROWIN) that was designed for just this purpose.

In the municipality of Samaniego, 73 producers benefited who had previously installed greenhouses for the production of table tomatoes. Each greenhouse had a size of 250 square meters.

Up to this moment, 36.9 hectares of poppy have been eradicated though the installation of the greenhouses