In the municipality of El Castillo, the cooperative “El Aflorecer de Annato” grows, harvests and processes achiote, a product that, despite the fact that it comes in greater proportion from South America, in Nicaragua is beginning to have a greater boom.
Once processed, its fruit is part of the main ingredient in Nicaraguan gastronomy. In this season of December it is essential for the preparation of nacatamales, stuffed chickens, marinated pork, among other traditional dishes, as well as being present in the day-to-day cooking of Nicaragua.
The cooperative “El Aflorecer de Annato” began as a social experiment, the first producer to venture into this crop was Miguel Silva López. “I brought some seeds from the coast that a foreigner with whom I worked gave me. I started with an apple, then other producers joined to plant annatto”, he recalls. Currently the cooperative is made up of 21 members (6 women – 15 men) between all of them they plant 43 hectares of achiote.
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The main difficulties they have faced is the quality certification of the product, to export the grain with higher quality. It has been a long process that goes step by step but it is already bearing fruit. They are just about to have the legality and quality certification papers, they hope that by next year they will have everything ready.
Annatto Processing Machine
One of the greatest achievements that the cooperative has obtained is the creation of an artisan annatto processing machine, created and launched by Miguel Silva. The machine has an approximate cost of three thousand dollars.
The most difficult part of the achiote harvest is cleaning the grain. This machine has the capacity to process one ton of achiote per day. The most complicated thing is blowing and pounding it so that the pure grain comes out, so the machine is a great help.
The cooperative currently has two processing machines that have the harvest of 43 hectares of achiote ready in less than 15 days.
One of the important aspects for the cooperative is to generate jobs in the municipality, during the achiote harvest the population is given work to clean and collect the grain, thus helping the municipality’s economy.
They aspire to grow and diversify
David Silva, current promoter of the cooperative, comments that “there is a lot of interest from customers in Costa Rica and Honduras to buy annatto, they are just waiting for the certification to start exporting.”
As a cooperative, in addition to planting achiote, they have managed to establish alliances with an American company that has financed and accompanied them for technical assistance in planting achiote and ginger. In the same way, it has allowed them to establish alliances with other producers in the municipality of El Castillo, currently they have had contact with 75 producers to improve production and generate more economic income for the families of the municipality.
“We are very encouraged and hope that the coming years will be prosperous, we are thinking about the diversification of the farms with planting not only achiote, we are thinking about planting cinnamon, vanilla, turmeric, lemongrass, basic grains so as not to rely solely on one product, Silva concluded.
By United Voices
