The Pehuenche Pewen Mapu indigenous community is located in the Lonquimay municipality, in the Andean foothills of the Araucanía Region. In 2017, six families from Lonquimay started a small-scale potato production project.
Potatoes are a food staple for the region's indigenous peoples and are used in different local cuisine ways. Potatoes were introduced into Chile by the Incas during their southern expansion and have been a core part of the diet and American identity of the Mapuche people for centuries.
Creation of the We Kimun Cooperative
A group of people from the Pehuenche Pewen Mapu community set up the agricultural cooperative "We Kimun" (which in Chedungun, the Mapuche-Pehuenche language, means "new knowledge"). The cooperative aims to a means of professionalizing and improving the sale of the potatoes they produce.
Through the cooperative, they have been able to apply for public and private funding, exclusively available for this type of organization, and increase their investment capacity by 30,000,000 CLP (35,230 Euro).
In 2018, the Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG) certified the cooperative as one of 17 accredited potato seed suppliers in the La Araucanía Region, a move that added considerable value to the product.
During 2019, the community began to build a multipurpose agro-industrial process room, which has allowed them to produce added-value products, such as jams, vacuum-sealed potato chips, vegetables, nuts, etc.). Importantly the raw materials all come from local producers and community-shared properties.
Enel Chile has collaborated with the We Kimun cooperative in helping it diversify its products beyond potatoes. Through the innovative crop project, the cooperative has started growing strawberries, which were harvested for the first time in early 2020.
During 2020, the cooperative also played a crucial role in assuring sufficient food was available for inhabitants of the Lonquimay municipality due to concerns about potential food shortages due to the COVID-19 health crisis. We Kimun sold 15,000 kilos of potatoes to the Lonquimay municipality, which were distributed to families that were hardest hit by the pandemic.
The cooperative is eyeing its next project for 2021 - a heated warehouse, which will increase the storage period for potatoes, meaning they will be available for sale during times of scarcity. Simultaneously, the processing room will be expanded, leading to increased production capacity and a more diversified product offering.
