ASOBAGRI holds its General Assembly

The Barillas Association of Farmers (ASOBAGRI)located in the Department of Huehuetenango in Guatemala is dedicated to the cultivation and processing of organic coffee. Its membership, made up of more than 550 members from 46 communities, is mainly Q’anjobal in origin and they speak their own language.

On February 23rd ASOBAGRI held its annual general meeting in the town of Santa Cruz of Barillas in the Department of Huehuetenango, Guatemala. Almost 400 members were present in the assembly, something which really stretched the capacity of the hotels and restaurants of Santa Cruz!

In his address to the assembly the manager of ASOBAGRI, delivered both in Spanish and in Q’anjobal, Francisco Baltasar Miguel, spoke in length about the results of the business carried out in the coffee harvest 2006-2007. Originally it had been projected to export 667,000 kilograms of green organic coffee (approximately 29 containers). In the final analysis a total of 552,000 kilograms green organic coffee (approximately 24 containers) were exported. Of this total, 80% was sent as Fairtrade and Organic to buyers in the United States, Europe and Canada. The remaining coffee, also organic, was bought by a Japanese customer.

A key element of the sales and marketing strategy of the association is to promote long term relationships and at present, ASOBAGRI is working on denominations of coffee origins with two of its customers. The aim is to be a reliable business partner who offers quality products with the certifications needed by its customers to sell in their respective marketplaces. Currently, ASOBAGRI has Fairtrade, Organic (NOP USDA), JAS (Japan), “Bird Friendly” and “Shade Grown” certifications.

Up until now ASOBAGRI has not had an adequate infrastructure to properly store the coffee of its members. A number of different storage units have had to be rented at a high cost. This in turn has had an adverse effect on end of year net profit figures.

During the general assembly, José Elias Guerrero, the current mayor of Santa Cruz de Barillas formally confirmed that the Town Council had approved funds totaling 300,000 Quetzals (approximately $ 40,000) towards the construction of a storage unit for ASOBAGRI. This new infrastructure development, which has a total cost of 1,289,000 Quetzals (approximately $ 170,000) is included in a project which ASOBAGRI successfully presented to the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB). The IDB project approved 300,000 Quetzals ($ 40,000) towards the costs of the new storage unit, the remaining amount will primarily come from ASOBAGRI's own capital reserves. It is anticipated that the new storage infrastructure will be completed by the end of 2007.

With regards to the use of the Fairtrade Premium, Francisco Baltasar presented a proposal from the committee which had, since November 2006, been collecting the viewpoints of the representatives of the 46 communities of the association.The Fairtrade premium amounted to 275,000 Quetzals (approximately $ 36,000) and the proposal put to the General Assembly for the use of the Fairtrade premium was as follows:

The proposal was put to a vote and was unanimously accepted by the General Assembly.

The election of the new Board of Directors took place in a festive atmosphere with the entire membership present, showing admirable levels of patience!, forming orderly queues to deposit their vote in the electoral boxes. The music provided by a local group, Alma Sonar, ensured that everyone got kept their spirits up throughout an intense day of information, presentations and debate.

The challenges facing the new Board of Directors are many and include:

How to achieve the desired growth outlined in the Business Plan 2005-2010 projecting a supply capacity of 50 containers of organic coffee?

How to maintain and further promote the commitment of the association’s members to the organization?

How to continue promoting the capitalization of the organization to achieve the level of competitiveness which the organization needs to be able to satisfy both the needs of its external customers (buyers) and its internal customers (members)

We are confident that ASOBAGRI will rise to these challenges with enthusiasm, strength and with management capability. In so doing, it will be making further progress along the road to self-sufficiency and sustainability.

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.