Throughout these rolling hills and mountains tucked behind the Illinizas, communities are hard at work, tilling, sewing, harvesting, processing, selling. Their fertile lands might one day become as famous, for their beauty and for their products, as the Loire or Napa valleys of the developed world.
Three small children chase each other round the room, their hands and mouths bursting with capulíes. The first harvest of the year has arrived at the headquarters of Yo Sí Puedo, a local association, and a handful of members are here to process four large buckets of these unique small black fruits. The capulí is an Andean cherry, and in the region of Canchagua they have been consumed since ancestral times.
Slowly, the mounds of fruit migrate from one bucket to another. The process is known as “the selection stage”, which, like all other stages in this small enterprise, is a hands-on affair carried out with patience never before seen outside Canchagua. The workers check each handful and set aside, in large bowl, any capulí that might be rotten or “ugly”. They also spit out the pits they consume in the process into the same bowl.
The 18-member cooperative was formed last year with the aim of producing both wine and preserves made from capulí. This is how many of the community projects begin around here: they are approached by local government representatives who encourage people to use endemic produce to make higher-value products. “We didn’t sell many preserves, but the wine sold well,” says Anita Oña, a young woman from Canchagua who last year graduated as an agronomist. She is now in charge of directing all technical processes at the cooperative. The young wine, as she describes the month-long fermented drink, proved widely popular amongst Canchagua residents. In fact, when they ran out of capulí, the cooperative got a hold of grapes to make their wine until the capulí trees were back in fruit.
With these four buckets, the season is now officially started, and the task ahead will be as challenging as it will be crucial if the cooperative is to survive. They have to measure, for example, how many liters of wine are made from one bucket. So far, it seems, the processes are carried out in an improvised manner that needs standardization. A visitor might, in fact, miss how this donated classroom has actually become a wine processing plant if it wasn’t for a few hand-written signs that designate areas for fermentation and storage.
Meanwhile, each member of the cooperative will donate one bucket of capulí in order to get the business going. “Each family has at least one tree on their property,” says Rosa Moposita while scooping fistfuls of the fruit from one bucket to another. If each member gives one full bucket, he or she will have at least one more bucket for the family to eat. And there are plenty of members who have more than one tree. “I have a hundred trees,” announces Luís Oña enthusiastically. Even though his trees have only just been planted and will not fruit for about five years, the talks given by government representatives inspired Oña to make the investment.
From the winding roads that leads to the small settlement of Canchagua, green fields extend as far as the eye can see. Laid out in neat, irrigated rows, a seemingly endless army of broccoli can attest to the fertility of this land, yet neither the product nor the profit of this harvest stays in Canchagua. The sprout, owned by a private company from nearby Machachi, makes the long journey across the Pacific Ocean before being defrosted and served at the tables of Japanese families. Meanwhile, more than six thousand people in this area practice subsistence farming, mainly cultivating maize. This year, two major frosts ruined the crops, leaving people in a difficult situation.
A cobbled road makes its way north, through open country. Here begins one of many surreal road trips the province of Cotopaxi offers the curious traveler. The road, a black tarmac snake, curves through the mountains, slithers down the valleys, and makes its way up again, hanging on cliff-sides where it is imperative to focus on every curve so as to not fall into an abyss below. It’s hard, however, to keep one’s eyes from wandering; the hills, neatly traced into rectangular plots of yellow, green and brown, cover the horizon with this giant handmade quilt.
Getting to Sigchos is not complicated, but if you are looking to visit Quinticusig, known for its production of mortiño (Andean blueberry) wine, you need time and patience, and must be prepared to talk to strangers. Each week between six and eight boxes of the wine make their way down the hill to shelves in shops in Sigchos, Latacunga… even Quito. Last December, sales at the Asociación de Productores y Comercializadores Agropecuarios de Quinticusig reached a new high: 240 bottles sold daily.
It’s hard to imagine the frantic racket of 240 bottles a day inside this little dark house, where two women work without speaking a word. In the overwhelming silence of the páramo, the fermentation of mortiños is nothing more than a whisper. “They came from the School of Engineers, and one of them had the idea. He asked if we had mortiños, and we said yeah, and he said ‘what do you do with them?’. ‘We get them when it’s time to make colada morada, and the rest stays in the bush,” narrates Marcia Angamarca, who’s worked at the plant for over a year. The idea of producing the wine came to Quinticusig seven years ago – back then the cooperative’s 21 members didn’t give a mortiño bush a second look.
Dubbed the ‘pearl of the Andes’ by the chef and author Carlos Gallardo de la Puente, this Andean endemic is finally positioning itself permanently in the national market. For generations, the mortiño grew wild in the páramo highlands of Ecuador, its fruit limited to a few indigenous traditions such as the hot fruit juice made for Day of the Dead, colada morada. In Quinticusig, the fruit is now avidly harvested. When all the bushes around the area have no mortiños left, members of the cooperative take their hunt further, often as far as Latacunga.
Like any good success story, this one has the kind of drama better told with an open bottle. At its hardest moments, the members of the cooperative were asked to contribute each with one chicken egg, to be sold in the local market and the money used to develop the business. “One day I even had a fight with my young daughter. We didn’t have anything to eat, and before I could stop her she had cooked the egg,” remembers Angamarca: “we’ve had tough times. Hopefully in time our kids will thank us for our efforts and become the future of the plant.” Due to the building’s frail structure, however, there is only so much they can improve. For this enterprise to reach the next level of development, they will probably need a strong investment, along with technical assistance.
At first glance, the green hills crisscrossed with dirt paths look abandoned, but if one takes the time to make the slow journey across the canton of Sigchos with the same imperturbability as its residents, the signs of a constant and arduous work become apparent. In July, the mounds around Chugchilán are painted purple by the flowers of the chocho (lupin). This crop is the main source of income for thousands of families in the area, and today more than ever, it’s good business. “For as long as I can remember, the production of chochos has been our livelihood, and it still is,” says Olga Chiguano. Although people in the Chugchilán area also cultivate maize, potato, beans, squash and other crops, chochos are the most lucrative crop. In 2010, the members of the Cooperativa de Producción Agrícola Granos Andinos San Miguel de Chugchilán (COPGRANACH) sold a quintal (about 220 pounds or 100 kg) of dried chochos to intermediate merchants for $20 to $30. Back then, COPGRANACH had been around for two years already, but on that year a radical change began to take place, which has led the price of a quintal of chochos to rise to a steady $80 today.
Chiguano tells of how an NGO called Maquita Ñucanchic came to Chugchilán in 2010 proposing the cooperative to build a processing plant so they could sell the chochos ready for consumption instead of dried, as they had done all of their lives. It was an idea that no one had thought of, Chiguano says, because it was just too ambitious for them. In a joint effort between local government, Maquita, the Spanish Agency of International Cooperation for Development, another Spanish NGO called Manos Unidas, and the members of the cooperative, a small factory was built on the outskirts of Chugchilán.
The stainless steel of the pools where chochos swim shine bright in the great room of the plant. Quality standards are evident. From the selection of “raw material”, as the dried chochos are now called, to the very last step of refrigeration before shipping and every step in between, there is a clear industrialization and organization that makes everything run like clockwork. Out of every 50 quintals of raw material, Chiguano tells us, 32 quintals will be of first rate product, 12 second rate, and one-and-a-half will be discarded. COPGRANACH currently has 40 active members and 265 farming partners. The factory limits its sales to companies that use chochos in their products, like Olé. However they have already acquired the sanitation licence to sell directly in supermarkets, and will begin to do so once their packaging design is complete and printed.
The chocho is another one of those Andean products that have reached food fame. The stunning nutritional value of this Ecuadorian legume ranks it among the ‘super foods’ – a massive international health trend right now. Regardless of what adjectives they may give the humble chocho in far-away places, here in Chugchilán it remains as necessary as ever, be it for some pocket change, or a bowl of lupin ceviche.
Throughout these rolling hills and mountains tucked behind the Illinizas, communities are hard at work, tilling, sewing, harvesting, processing, selling. Their fertile lands might one day become as famous, for their beauty and for their products, as the Loire or Napa valleys of the developed world.
Mariuxi Silva has been making panela (unrefined whole cane sugar) for 19 years now. The mill used to extract the cane was operated by horses. “If you looked away, the first thing the horse would do was drink the cane juice,” she recalls. Of course, those were different times (and different production standards). Panela is Palo Quemado’s star product. Located at the northern tip of the province of Cotopaxi, Palo Quemado is more akin in climate and geography to the tropical province of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas than to the highland landscapes we associate with Cotopaxi. In fact, to get to Palo Quemado it is easier to do so from the road leading to Santo Domingo (left from Aloag) and then south near Tandapi. The air is so sweet here, it makes one dizzy. Every month, over 132,000 pounds of panela are sent to Europe from Palo Quemado. The Flor de Caña Association, supported by the NGO Maquita Ñucanchic, has four international certifications, including Fair Trade. Panela is considered to contain greater nutritional value than sugar, high in vitamins, minerals and proteins.
