Marleni's Story: Operating at a Fair Profit

Marleni is a young woman from the village of Lomitas Arriba, Cauca, Colombia. She is 20 years old and is a 6th semester student of Business Administration at Universidad del Valle. She and her mother, Mrs. Olga, live on a small piece of land in the upper part of the community. The family consists of just the two of them and they earn their livelihood from their work on the farm. They love living in the village of Lomitas because it is a very beautiful, quiet and a pleasant place to live. On their land they have chickens and a cow, and with Olga’s brother, they have planted 10,000 pineapples, and have 40 pigs, including brood sows, a boar and small pigs. They look after the crop and care for the animals.

With the support of the Community Leader's Program, they also began a project of 100 broilers in July 2020. They began with 100 chickens, but during the first production cycle they realized that it was not easy to sell them quickly in the community. Although people consume this type of meat a lot, there are other similar projects, so they decided to raise chickens in a staggered manner, that is, with groups of 30 and 40 chicks every 15 days; in this way they have been able to adapt more easily to the demand of the community. The chickens they produce are very high quality. They have a good weight, yellow color and are low in fat. These characteristics make them very popular with the people of the community who constantly ask them how to raise chickens and express their satisfaction at consuming an excellent quality product from their own community. Due to the pandemic and the national strike, the cost of producing chickens and selling prices have risen considerably. Many people have taken advantage of the situation to raise prices and obtain large profits in a short time, but Marleni and Olga follow the principle of obtaining a fair profit when they calculate the sale price of the chickens they produce, since one of the objectives of the project is to offer an excellent quality product at a fair price. The community greatly appreciates this gesture and is increasingly committed to supporting the project.

One of the things Marleni likes the most is that she can apply what she is learning to improve her chicken project and the activity on her land. Together with her mother, they want to continue optimizing production and they want to add a nursery where people from the community can find a variety of plants, especially those that are in danger of disappearing. They also think that they can promote the establishment of a farmers’ market in their community, where all the producers can sell their products without having to take them to town. They say that these types of initiatives are already being carried out in nearby communities and that they provide very good results.

“Marleni's participation in the program has been very positive,” says her mother. “I have seen very positive changes in my daughter's behavior, in her commitment to her university studies, her responsibilities on the farm and to herself.” She is grateful to the program for the opportunity her daughter has to be educated with other values, the financial support to start her project and her university studies, and she hopes that other young people in the community can also have and take advantage of this valuable opportunity.