Le commerce de tomates et la confiance
L´entreprise de commercialisation “ El Arca” rassemble les producteurs et les consommateurs dans un système commercial juste et solidaire. Avec une première expérience à Mendoza, Argentine, elle vise à étendre le modèle d´intégration économique vers d´autres zones de l´Argentine et de l´Amérique Latine.
(English version)
With trust in banking so deeply eroded, can small localized banking institutions rise above and succeed? How can they thrive in this turbulent economic climate?
In the Mendoza province of Argentina, a small community of entrepreneurs is preparing for the tomato harvest. With the help of “solidarity investors,” they’re purchasing seeds, irrigating and cultivating their land, and eventually making jars of fresh tomato sauce that just might make their way to your dinner table.
The Entrepreneurship Association of Mendoza (ASEM) is making this harvest a profitable experience for many unemployed young people and adults. Seven years ago, Argentina suffered a financial crisis – not unlike the current global downturn -- that completely dismantled its traditional banking system.
In the face of disaster, social entrepreneur Pablo Ordóñez recognized the need to create jobs and opportunities for those hit hardest by the meltdown. He launched ASEM’s School of Entrepreneurship to empower those in need to improve their lives by building their own self-sustaining, entrepreneurial businesses.
Ordóñez’s School of Entrepreneurship provides personalized education for creating productive businesses. Business leaders, entrepreneurial teachers, and institutions come together to teach students how to survive in the marketplace and to give them the skills to start their own businesses.
"At first, people viewed our work with disbelief because we didn't give things away as most other social assistance programs did,” Ordóñez said. “Instead, we focused on building on people's skills and capacity, supporting the choices that people made to better their own condition. We focus our work on supporting a culture that is based on education."
To date, over 200 people have completed the School of Entrepreneurship, building the confidence and sense of community necessary to reverse the pattern of instability and unemployment that still dominates the region’s labor market.
In 2005, after observing the success of graduates’ independent enterprises, ASEM created a separate non-profit organization to experiment with the idea of uniting the common interests of small producers, “solidarity investors,” and responsible consumers. El Arca gives fair trade access to working men and women, businesses, and state institutions by organizing a system that generates capital for small producers through investments from within the community.
During the tomato harvest for instance, small producers get the capital they need from solidarity investors who can contribute as much money as they’d like. When the production cycle is finished, they receive their initial investment plus a 10 percent benefit paid in jars of sauce.
El Arca also trades in trust. According to Ordóñez, "a person rarely trusts that he will get returns on his investment. But when a producer calls the investor after a few months to tell him that he can go by to pick up his initial investment plus the benefits, a strong relationship is formed.”
El Arca has proved that its model works for producers of food, textiles, agriculture, cattle, crafts and services. The system is gaining a great deal of momentum, and is beginning to expand beyond Mendoza and even filtering out beyond Argentina's borders.
The work of Ordóñez and El Arca is demonstrating that not only can you improve the rules of the traditional market game, you can actually transform the rules, allowing participants to trust in human relations and come out winners, without leaving any players behind.
Resources:
- See El Arca’s entry for the Banking on Social Change – Seeking Financial Solutions for All collaborative competition.
