The CONAIE

The CONAIE is Ecuador's national indigenous confederation. A guy named Juano picked me up in the Cusubamba coop. Cusubamba is a village of about 100 inhabitants, but no one is ever on the street. They are always in the field. Juano showed me the tree nursery project where shrubs are grown to be sold, then he showed me the coop store, which was created to offer basic products at low prices for farmers. Juano explained to me that he would not put the village shops out of business, it would only make them have to have to lower their prices to a reasonable level because they were very high. Juano headed up accounting and project management.