APF

La Granja

June 12th, 2009

Team Impacto

Client: Jaime Garzon

 

SUMMARY:

 

La Granja is a state-run community employment project that produces tilapia, chanchitos, and cuyes.  La Granja has both lucrative and didactic objectives.  Any sales profits go to the municipality, but the local high school also sends students to learn how to grow and maintain the animals.  Unfortunately, we do not feel that La Granja is a project we can work with because it is owned by the local government.  The various aspects of of farming the fish and livestock are currently maintained by two employees of the municipality.  With fixed salaries, any sales made by La Granja go to the municipality, leaving little room for entrepreneurship and innovation.   Jaime Garzon, representative of La Granja at our APF #1, understood and agreed why La Granja was not an appropriate partner for Asesora Por Favor. 

           

The local high school is also a partner in La Granja.  Jamie Garzon (also the steward of the Lacteos project) teaches students how to maintain and grow the fish and livestock.  Because Jaime has his own farm, and classes to teach, he only spends 2 hours a week at La Granja with students.  From his perspective, he is not being paid to work/teach at La Granja, and has no incentive to produce for La Granja. 

 

With the ownership and administration currently in the hands of the municipality, we concluded that La Granja was not an appropriate partner at this time.  With no entrepreneurs to support, at this time we recommend that SolCom does not conduct further APF meetings.  This was a conclusion with which both parties were comfortable.

 

The one possibility for future partnership would be if La Granja was made independent from the municipality.  For example, Dave Goucher ( Peace Corps volunteer and director of Jungle Dave´s Tours) suggested that the Tilapia project could be made independent from the municipality because it was funded in part by funds from the Peace Corps.  The tilapia project cost over US$ 35,000, but is currently not operating.  If these projects were somehow privatized, then it would be possible for local entrepreneurs to successfully run these projects, and then SolCom and APF could play a role in supporting these projects.