CADO Sugarcane Farmers'
Cooperative
Sugarcane
has traditionally been farmed in the steep hills of Bolivar and
Cotopaxi provinces in Ecuador. A handful of big businesses
dominate the sugar market, so most families use their sugarcane to
produce a potent form of alcoholic drink known as aguardiente. It's a low-value
product. The families need to
work all week to
make a small tankful that sells for as little as $30 to $50 in the
local
market.
In this area of extreme poverty, there are few other options.
Since 2000, CRACYP
has provided training and appropriate technology to make the process
more efficient, supported organic farming and better environmental
practices, and helped five communities organise themselves
into a cooperative, CADO (formed in 2003). CRACYP helped with
technology for purification and now the
cooperative
can purify the crude, 60o aguardiente
up to 70o for
medicinal use as an antiseptic or
even 94o for
use as potable alcohol for making liqueurs.
CADO
aims to pay its members a fair price for their organic alcohol and a
'social premium' which goes into community projects. They
also receive a share of the
profits. Some of the younger members are receiving training
in marketing and quality control and we hope to provide salaried
employment in the future. Two more communities are in the
process of joining CADO, so over 130 families now have the chance to
fight poverty without losing their traditional way of life or
destroying the environment.
CADO
now has organic certification and is negotiating to sell organic
alcohol on a fair trade basis. More markets for organic,
community-produced alcohol would mean we could help even more families
to
protect the environment; to receive a fair price for their hard work;
and
to ensure that their children don´t have to work
after school. Contact CADO@progresoverde.org
to
buy fairly-traded organic alcohol.
As
with all CRACYP's sustainable development projects, there is an element
of reforestation: we "retain" from the communities a small percentage
of
their extra income and return it to them in the form of tree seedlings
for reforestation in the local area.
You
can see - and
taste - how CADO turns the sugarcane into aguardiente and
visit the distilleries on
a guided tour with our nearby
Farmstay EcoTourism Project.
CADO
- Processing
sugarcane into organic alcohol with appropriate technology,
adding
value to the
local economy and encouraging organic production.
A Green
Progress project from CRACYP.
