Lara State, May 18, 2023 (Mincomunas Press) – With the presence of the Vice Minister of Communal Economy of the People’s Power Ministry for Communes and Social Movements, Hernan Vargas, representatives of the Communal Economic Coffee Circuit had a meeting in Villanueva, capital of the Hilario Luna y Luna parish of the Moran municipality of Lara State.
During a large assembly, spokespersons of the circuit from several states of the country exposed the strengths and critical knots that they present in the production, distribution, and commercialization chain of this relevant item, with great historical roots in the mountainous zone of Venezuela.
The spokeswoman Morelis Malvacia indicated, during her participation, that in the Hilario Luna y Luna parish, six Communes organized themselves in a communal block to self-manage the solution of problems, such as the repair of the ambulance.
He explained that the Communal Economic Circuit of Coffee is a system of aggregation of producing families, Communal Councils, Communes, and enterprises of direct or indirect communal social property, with several links, among which he mentioned the School of Agroecology and the collective fertilization. At the same time, he congratulated the financing policy for commune projects of Banco Bicentenario.
During the meeting, Mairelis Escalona, spokeswoman of the Estrellas del Futuro Commune, a member of the Planning Table, pointed out that in communal association, they have 8 Communes, which integrate 127 Communal Councils, including 210 families linked to the coffee circuit, through the different forms of participation.
She specified that 32 spokespersons integrate the Planning Board: 16 principals and 16 substitutes. “The circuit not only pursues that we become producers, but also owners of the whole process. In this productive chain, the means of production associated with the circuit is the municipal roaster, Café Cardenal. The installed production capacity of the circuit is 4,500 kilos of ground coffee per day”.
Orlando Azuaje, a producer from the state of Portuguesa, pointed out that in his area, there is a population of 1,500 families integrated into 19 Communal Councils and more than 1,200 hectares of coffee “almost all of them to be improved. The organization has to advance”.
Angel Vizcaya, a member of the Prudencio Primera Commune, one of the farthest from Villanueva parish, said that the Commune constitute six Communal Councils and 270 families, all of them linked to the coffee circuit.
The coffee grower spokeswoman Yamili Contreras, from the La Laguneta Communal Council, Campo Elias municipality, Trujillo State, expressed that “we believe that organization is our way. It is the only way we have. We are struggling with coffee prices because it is impossible to maintain ourselves while people buy from us at less than the production costs. We have to establish new prices.”
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