Fagrotes in the Community

By: Isaac Dehl

In the past six months of our time in Chocó, Colombia I have welcomed the challenge of building relationships and understanding the context of the communities of San Juan and Medio Baudó. This includes building friendships with the brothers and sisters of the Mennonite Brethren Church as well as learning about the role of my partner, Fagrotes, within the community. Fagrotes, which stands for Fundación Agropecuaria Tejiendo Esperanza, is an agricultural program focused on providing agricultural opportunities for the people of Chocó.

Due to many complex factors including poverty and neglect from the state, very few job opportunities are present in Chocó. The Mennonite Brethren Church in Chocó saw the challenges that its members were facing and together founded Fagrotes as a way to offer opportunities. Due to the heavy rainfall of Chocó many common crops do not grow well here. The fruits that can be grown locally oftentimes cannot compete with the prices of the fruits imported by non-Chocoanos who therefore own a lot of the local markets.

Cacao (the fruit used for making chocolate) and rice grow well here in Chocó but were not ideal crops for farmers because there were no processing facilities in Chocó. This means that farmers had to pay to have their product shipped out the department to be processed and turned into consumable products, ready for sale to the community. Although Fagrotes was not able to fulfil all these needs right away, they have remained hopeful and trusted the timing of God. They now have farmers all over the San Juan and Medio Baudó who bring their harvests to the facilities in San Antonio to be turned into chocolate bars and packaged rice, ready for the market.

Chocolate and rice are only two of the projects of Fagrotes but they have many other exciting projects, such as producing fish food from the bi-products of chocolate and rice processing, that expand the reach of their program and continue weaving hope for the future. Confronted by a dilemma, the Mennonite Brethren Church of Chocó looked towards the life of Jesus as a peace builder and embraced the challenge of creating opportunities in a complex society. Fagrotes is a model of how the Church can reach outside of its physical walls and become a servant leader in the community. Their work embraces a vision of Shalom in which Jesus desires justice at every level of our lives. I anticipate experiencing the work of Fagrotes in action over the next year and half, as I build relationships with the farmers and hear their stories.