Roberta Rivera, Plurinational State of Bolivia
"It’s mostly women who are making charque", explains Roberta. “In the past, men were always the ones working, but nowadays we contribute [to the family income], too.”
© IFAD Carlos Sanchez
20/06/2024
Plurinational State of Bolivia
On a sunny October morning in Turco, a small town on Bolivia’s High Plains, Roberta Rivera is scrolling through online ads for llama Jerky. The 500g packages of charque, as the dried meat is locally known, are colourful in bright yellow, orange and green, much like the fabrics so prominent in this part of the Andes mountains. But Roberta is not interested in buying – she’s looking at the comments.
“Sometimes, they send us messages from Chile and ask, 'how much'”, she boasts. Although Roberta and her collective have been producing various llama meat products for over a decade, internet marketing is a new skill they are embracing. "We can showcase the products through Facebook Marketplace”, she explains. “Now we sell our product online, wholesale and retail.”
Like marketing, dehydrating the llama meat is a process Roberta only took on recently, when the Turco Association of Agro-Livestock Producers (APAT) bought new equipment through a project called ProCamélidos that helps communities dependent on llama production get more out of their goods. Now, she and other women do the whole process from A to Z: grinding the meat, then pounding it flat before it goes into the dehydration machine, and, finally, weighing and packaging it according to food safety standards.
"It’s mostly women who are making charque", explains Roberta. “Men were always the ones working, but nowadays we contribute [to the family income], too”, says the mother of two.
©IFAD Carlos Sanchez
For now, the 33-year-old delivers 70 to 100kg each month, mostly to clients in Cochabamba, Bolivia’s second largest city. But she is already working with ProCamélidos to meet the requirements to export to Argentina and Brazil – her big dream.
Even though llamas have been a vital source of meat and wool in Bolivia for centuries, the rural conditions for raising them weren’t ideal for a long time and access to markets was limited. But that’s changing thanks to initiatives like ProCamélidos and today the South American camelids are an integral part of national strategies to decrease food insecurity, malnutrition and rural poverty. Roberta’s family is one of 18 000 working with the initiative, which has also invested heavily in animal shelters and access to water and solar power in rural communities.
Verónica Calle, a 23-year-old community leader in Chojñacota del Ayllu Aparu, highlights the positive impact from these investments. "Before the programme, llamas would be born and freeze to death outdoors, sometimes attacked by foxes and pumas. But now they are safe with shelters," she says.
ProCamélidos is a collaboration between the Government of Bolivia and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), who have jointly invested USD 38 million to develop the South American camelid value chain.