Paraguay – Cooperative Development Program (CDP)

Increasing Farmers’ and Entrepreneurs’ Incomes

According to the World Bank, Paraguay’s land and income distributions are among the most lopsided in Latin America, with nearly 34 percent of the population living in poverty. Agriculture accounts for 25 percent of GNP, 40 percent of employment and 50 percent of registered exports. Because many of the country’s poorest live in rural areas and are involved in agriculture in some way, targeting efforts in that sector can produce long-term growth and poverty reduction.

The USAID-funded Cooperative Development Program (CDP) is an initiative to increase overseas farmers’ and entrepreneurs’ incomes through participation in the global economy. Under CDP, ACDI/VOCA provides technical assistance and fosters local, national and international partnerships to help primarily rural agricultural cooperatives move up the value chain and become sustainable.

In 2002 ACDI/VOCA’s CDP portfolio, which includes Russia, Brazil and the Resources for Cooperative and Association Excellence in International Development website, expanded to include Paraguay in an initiative to continue until 2009. CDP/Paraguay is designed to enhance agricultural cooperative and producer association development in the departments of Caaguazú, San Pedro and Concepción. CDP targets agribusinesses to benefit the larger economy and many of Paraguay’s poorest, most of whom are involved in agriculturally based enterprises. ACDI/VOCA works with institutions to improve governance, management and financial systems. CDP also stresses the importance of developing market-driven member services. By providing training and other consultative services in management, strategic planning, sound business practices, internal controls, production and marketing, co-ops and associations are able to pass on their benefits to a large number of smallholder farmers and small-scale entrepreneurs, resulting in increased enterprise capacity and expanded opportunities for income generation.

The primary role of CDP/Paraguay is to facilitate volunteer consultant assistance to cooperatives for the purpose of strengthening value chain linkages and increasing income generation. ACDI/VOCA identifies cooperatives and then assigns volunteer consultants to analyze the selected cooperatives and value chains. The volunteer consultants make recommendations to the cooperative’s directors, managers, members and employees on how to improve operations or add value to the value chain in which they currently operate. As of March 2008, 26 volunteer assignments have been carried out as part of the CDP/Paraguay program, benefiting over 45,000 individuals.

To date, cooperatives have received assistance in operational and financial management, business plan development, cooperative education for new cooperatives and/or members, improved beef production, the commercial development of livestock feed, animal nutrition, banana production and post-harvest handling. Five additional volunteer assignments are planned for the second quarter of 2008 and encompass a wide range of assistance. Most recently, the technical areas most requested for volunteer specialists include banana and pineapple production technique improvement, palm adaptations for hat production, tomato and green pepper drying, cotton processing for medicinal uses, herb processing, and cooperative restructuring.

In 2006 ACDI/VOCA helped to establish agreements with two second-tier cooperative organizations, Credicoop and Cepacoop, extending CDP’s assistance to the eastern region of Paraguay. In March of 2008, based on the success of these agreements and the project’s positive impact on the cooperative community, ACDI/VOCA signed an agreement with the Federation of Producer Cooperatives (FECOPROD) to extend assistance even further. ACDI/VOCA’s contact with the Farmers Development Fund Agency also opened opportunities to assist cooperatives that receive assistance in grain and sugar cane value chains as well as other value chains in which production cooperatives operate.

ACDI/VOCA sent Paraguayan cooperative directors to participate in a 2006 regional CDP seminar on “change management” held in Bogotá, Colombia. This seminar gave the directors opportunities to share their experiences and hear about different strategies adopted by other cooperatives to overcome internal and external issues affecting operations. Building off the conference, CDP in Paraguay played host to the 2008 Worldwide CDP Modernizing Business Culture within Agricultural Cooperatives Conference. This conference hosted representatives from nine Paraguayan cooperatives, as well as representatives from cooperatives in Bolivia and Colombia and representatives from local public and private organizations. The conference focused on bringing cooperatives together to share ideas on how best to adhere to the organization’s social mission while still maintaining a business-oriented attitude in their operations. The University of Arizona’s Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology presented its initial results on studies conducted on cooperatives in Brazil and Paraguay and made recommendations on how cooperatives in Latin American countries could be reshaped to remain competitive in local, national and international markets.

For more information, contact David Lindgren at dlindgren@acdivoca.org.

Updated: 3/08

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