Manduvira: Supporting Paraguay's Organic Sugar Producers

Date
Jan 2012
As global consumption of organic food -including organic sugar- has risen, so have prices and demand. Yet small Paraguayan producers in one of the world's main organic sugar production centers lack the capital to invest in infrastructure and training that would allow them to produce more and increase their earnings.The Inter-American Development Bank's Opportunities for the Majority Initiative (OMJ) is providing an up to US$3 million loan to Cooperativa de Producción Agroindustrial Manduriva Limitada (CM) to help them build their own organic sugar processing plant.
CM is the only cooperative in Latin America producing organic sugar with fair trade certification, yet its associated members are only just one link in the organic sugar market's value chain. With their own processing plant, CM's approximately 1,700 members will not only grow sugar cane, but they will manufacture organic sugar, value added products, and contribute to the sugar value chain from field through production to sale of processed sugar. They will manage processing, manufacturing and commercial relations, set their own prices and raise their profits.