Inauguration of the first Sacha Muiu Amazonian fruit processing plant

The Inga People of Villagarzón, Putumayo, inaugurated the first Indigenous-owned plant for processing Amazonian fruits.

The plant has a capacity of 500 litres of canangucha oil per year for the national and international cosmetics market.

The plant is one of the results of a project financed by the Indigenous pillar of the REM Visión Amazonía programme, in which ten communities of the Inga People decided to invest in one of the non-timber forest products that have provided economic and nutritional benefits to their families over the years.

Many Amazonian communities consider the canangucha a tree of life and use the fruit of this palm in their food, which in turn also provides food for birds and shelter for many animals. The Canangucha Palm grows in wet or flood-prone areas and can reach a height of 35 metres and a diameter of 30-60 cm. It is distinguished by its large fan-shaped leaves.

On 2 February 2023 ACIMVIP and the Sacha Muiu Association had the pleasure of inviting the institutions, organisations and funders of the implementation of the sustainable Amazonian fruit use project to the inauguration and handover of the Sacha Muiu processing plant, the agro-industrial association of the Inga People.

«Since the Visión Amazonía project launched its first call for proposals, we have committed to financing this project. The Inga People of Villagarzón now has a Canangucha processing plant, which will improve the quality of life of all the families who committed to this project», said Carlos López, of the Association of Inga Indigenous Cabildos (Indigenous traditional authority) of Villagarzón, Putumayo – ACIMVIP, the project's implementing entity.

At the Sacha Muiu plant there is a special area for receiving, weighing, washing and separating the extracted canangucha pulp, which is then moved to the raw material processing area, where it passes through the pulper and the oil extractors, the two machines that are the basis for processing and using the canangucha fruit.

Specific sections for staff hygiene, as well as a space where people can eat. The section of the administrative office, the management office, the secretariat office and the waiting room, where the administrative and financial operations of the plant will be run.

The factory is built on six hectares of land where the community also wants to develop an experimental centre with a meeting place, ecological trails and demonstration plots of canangucha, sacha inchi, copoazú and other Amazonian fruits, in order to create an Indigenous industrial complex as an example of socially, environmentally and economically sustainable production.

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