News

Promoting mountain products in Bolivia

17.06.2016

Alongside small mountain producers in Bolivia and Slow Food agronomists, Alessia Vita, Programme Expert/Economist at the Mountain Partnership Secretariat, developed a strategy on 29 May – 1 June 2016 to improve the value chain of selected quality products with market potential to enhance the producers’ income and livelihoods. She met with a number of small producers, communities and cooperatives in the Chuquisaca area with the support of Fundación Pasos, a nonprofit organization that builds the capacity of small producers to sustainably cultivate crops and improve their access to markets, which benefits the greater community through increased employment, income and better access to healthy foods.

Vita’s visit was part of the Mountain Product Initiative, a project funded by the Italian Development Cooperation Agency to develop a light labelling scheme to highlight the mountain origin of products. In Bolivia, the focus of the worldwide project is on amaranth production, a quality crop that is not selling well on the market. The price dropped from USD 130 in 2015 to USD 45 in 2016, due to unusual climate events and excessive undifferentiated supply. Multiple producers tended to arrive at the market at the same time with the exact same product, the Oscar Blanco amaranth, often obliging them to sell below production price.

The strategy jointly identified to address the issue relies on product differentiation. Starting in December 2016, a group of volunteer family producers will plant a traditional local variety of amaranth, called criollo, which is different in colour and nutritional characteristics from the more commonly marketed Oscar Blanco.

For the traditional variety to meet with market success, a rise in its demand was deemed necessary. With Mountain Partnership Secretariat facilitation, Martha Cordero, President of Irupana, a company specialized in organic food production, especially Andean cereals, joined the Mountain Product Initiative, and plans to purchase the criollo amaranth at a premium price, securing the producers’ income. The product will be marketed through a dedicated line, whose packaging and labelling will be developed with Mountain Partnership Secretariat support, to ensure that, in addition to compulsory label information, a description of the product’s quality is provided.

“Based on what we have learned from market surveys, we expect that consumers will find a label that tells the story of the product and the producers very compelling. The label will also help small mountain producers make their voices heard far from the fields and sites where they work,” said Vita, explaining the concept behind the mountain certification scheme.

Amaranth in Bolivia is one of the products that will bear the label starting in May 2017.

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