San Vicente Cooperative Votes to Suspend New Farm Admissions

The Cooperative Council in San Vicente voted unanimously on Monday to suspend new-farm admissions through April 2027, citing a backlog of Federal paperwork that has left hundreds of smallholders waiting for membership approval. The decision marks an unusual moment in the region's cooperative movement: demand for membership has outpaced the administrative machinery designed to process it.

The Federal Office for Cooperative Affairs, based in Meridian, has not processed a completed application since August. Council members say the delay is not a matter of policy disagreement but sheer volume: the office is understaffed, and appeals of rejected applications can take months to resolve.

The suspension affects roughly four hundred farmers currently in the queue, many of whom have already paid the membership fee and submitted land-registration documents. Council president Mariano Flores said the vote was not a rejection of new members, but a signal to Meridian that the system is broken. The Federal Interior Minister has been asked to intervene.

Smaller cooperatives in the interior towns of El Rocío and Puerto Iguazú have already begun processing their own local admissions independently, a workaround that risks fragmenting the region's unified pricing scheme.