THE CO-OP

In Pedro Vicente Maldonado, In the Province of Pichincha, Juan Carlos Mesias began his trajectory as a very young man, purchasing fine aroma cocoa trees to plant on his father’s farm that had lost much of his previous crop to their own farm animals. As time went on, he began to experience the difficulty in selling his product as a single producer. In 2008, he decided to organize a group that consisted of himself and his fellow farmers with the same needs. They began knocking on doors in different cities offering Nacional cacao. They discovered 40 more families that also grew other crops for a living such as papaya, sugar cane, lemon, guayaba, guanabana, and plantain. These families also had cattle and milk production. Thus, with everyone coming together, they were able to form, El Finquierito (The Little Farm).