América Latina | COVID-19

"It's good we're united together."

2 septiembre 2020 9:00

The coronavirus pandemic has brought the world to a standstill; that includes smallholder farmers and the cooperatives that support them. Fernando Tulio Lopez Parra, President from cooperative Asopasac, explains how how he experiences the pandemic, and what the future holds in store.

Fernando Tulio Lopez Parra: "Our 43 members – and their entire families – have been hit extremely hard by the pandemic. Life in Colombia virtually stopped during the first few months. Everyone had to go into lockdown. Since then, some sectors have relaxed their restrictions, but the ASOPASAC farmers are struggling because the social distancing requirement means that they can’t have as many pickers working on the harvest. As a result, both the harvest and the sale of avocados is suffering. But the main disadvantage is the low price for avocados – our revenue has decreased dramatically.

Thanks to the Rabo Foundation emergency fund, we were able to buy the protective equipment necessary for us to do our work. Without their help, we wouldn’t have had any face masks, gloves or disinfectant. Normally, pickers come from all over the area to bring in the harvest, but that’s impossible during the pandemic. Fortunately, we’ve managed to find enough pickers by asking our neighbors to help.

What have we as a cooperative learned from the pandemic? That it’s good we’re united together. Working together has allowed us to stay afloat during the crisis, and we expect that we’ll make it through together as well. Once the virus is under control, we’ll do what we can to scale up our production as quickly as possible and to find our own market where we can trade our product without an intermediary. Only then will we be able to get a reasonable price for our avocados and improve our members’ lives.”

Covid-19 Emergency Fund

In 2020 we devoted a part of our budget to emergency aid for our project partners’ initiatives. Asopasac received a grant from our Covid-!9 Emergency Fund to by disinfectant and face masks for their members.