San Vicente cooperative opens doors to new farms after three-year freeze

The Cooperative Council of San Vicente convened on Wednesday evening to vote on reopening its membership rolls. By a margin of sixty-three to forty-one, the council's elected delegates approved admitting new smallholder farms beginning in January. The vote ends a freeze that began in 2023, when the cooperative suspended new applications amid a backlog of federal paperwork and a dispute over whether the Federal Office for Cooperative Affairs was adequately funding the registration process.

The reopening comes as Tierra Verde's coffee and yerba mate prices have recovered at the federal exchange, making expansion economically plausible for the first time in two years. Yet the council's internal debate revealed persistent friction: a significant minority argued that dues should rise to cover the cost of federal compliance, while others insisted that higher fees would lock out the smallest farms the cooperative was founded to serve.

The vote signals confidence in the region's export market but leaves unresolved the question of how much burden individual farms should bear to participate in a system designed to protect them. Implementation begins in sixty days, when the cooperative will open applications and notify the Federal Office for Cooperative Affairs of its new status.