Welcome to Minka Fair Trade (Minka)

We represent a network of producer organisations situated in rural and marginalised urban Peru. Working under the name of MINKA since 1978, we practice fair trade in an organised and conscious way in order to place our agricultural and handicraft products on the domestic and international markets.

We are involved in the identification and production of natural raw materials, of either vegetable, animal or mineral origin, in their transformation with ancestral and modern technology and in the creation and development of new products - always keeping in mind the possible creation and implementation of new technologies.

Forming part of our work: the supply of raw materials, the creation of quality control mechanisms, package and label design, the search for and creation of new and better markets, the creation of and experimentation with new marketing strategies, the identification and execution of small projects of integral development in our communities - financed with the profits of our commercial activity or with donations from friendly institutions; but principally with the collective contribution of all of us we practice the ancestral custom called MINKA and are able to organise collaboration between everybody for the mutual benefit of all.

We are permanently working together in research and training activities with the participation of all of the producers.

We also prepare trips throughout Peru, giving our visitors and producers the opportunity to meet and at the same time allowing us to show them some remnants of the science and technology of our ancestors.

We are committed to the dissemination and promotion of fair trade at both a national and international level and for this reason MINKA has been a propulsive member and active participant of the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT) since its creation in 1991.

A short description of our lives in the rural Andes

The predominance of small farms, the lack of cultivable land, the deficiency of adequate techniques to improve agricultural productivity and the absence of economic resources make our agriculture basically oriented towards self-consumption.

However, we cover only a small part of our families' nutritional requirements and we therefore have to produce goods for other consumers. The males of our families, both adults and adolescents, have to migrate on a seasonal basis towards nearby towns and mines to search for a job that might allow them to earn the minimal wage they need in order to maintain their families.

In 1978 we began the joint commercialisation of our production oriented towards foreign consumers. This has enabled us to make direct contact with wholesale importers in the international market and in doing so to obtain better incomes for handicraft and agricultural production that today includes organic Andean foods. However, only 20% of what we produce annually is channelled through our organisation, meaning that we must continue to sell, on an individual basis, a large percentage of our production through the traditional market. This traditional market lacks ethical principle and functions in a speculative, informal manner. Extensive, complex chains of intermediaries ensure that profits are made by others through the undervaluation of our labour. Rather than asking for better prices from the consumers according to the quality of our products, they apply consistent pressure on us to lower our prices.

In 2000 we developed and formalised our tourism project with the aim not only of complementing our incomes that will enable us to keep our families together but also of forming direct relationships with our consumers (both current and potential), exchanging experiences, showing them traces of the science of our ancestors, sharing our inherited philosophies of life and, especially, demonstrate the impact that fair trade has in our communally-organised lives.