Argentina: government grant could help fund new goatskin tannery
17/01/2013
A grant from an agency of the ministry for social development in Buenos Aires is helping farmers from a co-operative called El Carrizalito build a new headquarters in the town of Bardas Blancas. It will act as a meeting place for the co-operative’s members, who on average have herds of only 400 head spread out over a wide area, making it difficult for them to meet up. The new headquarters will include accommodation for co-operative members to use as well as for the organisation to make available to tourists; Bardas Blancas is on the Paso Pehuenche, an Andean mountain pass between Chile and Argentina.
It will also allow the farmers to add value to their businesses by processing skins themselves, rather than sell them to a tannery in Mendoza, which is what they have done until now.
El Carrizalito members received ministry funding two years ago and used the money to revitalise their organisation, which was set up in the early 1990s, but had been inactive for a number of years. One of the first projects they concentrated on was gaining direct access to Malargüe’s municipal abattoir, which president, Adela González, claims has added 40% to the value of goats going for slaughter. There is high demand in Mendoza, in other parts of Argentina and even in other countries for suckling kid meat from the province’s total herd of around 600,000 head.
The tannery could be a further step in allowing the farmers to gain the maximum possible value from their animals.
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