Founded in 2005, this producers’ association (AFLOPHA, for its acronym in Spanish) is led by a group of Aymara women — indigenous people from the Andean region. They were individual producers who decided to pool resources and energy to work collectively to sell organic certified products. They have grown vegetables such as lettuce, radish, spinach and carrot.

AFLOPHA is located in Achocalla, a town 15 km away from La Paz, capital of Bolivia. This location is known as Altiplano, the most extensive area of high plateau outside Tibet — a large area of flat land. Working in the Altiplano, producers deal with a desert-polar climate with strong and cold winds. Temperatures can fall from 20 to 0 degrees Celsius between day and night, so it’s not easy to grow food. To protect their crops and their sales, AFLOPHA members grow their vegetables in greenhouses.

The association aims to offer its members capacity-building workshops and network with similar organizations locally, nationally and internationally to improve their products, sales and, consequently, their livelihoods. In the mid-2010s, they realized they needed training to gain more skills and increase their capacity to grow a successful enterprise, so they connected with us.

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