How We Invest The Fairtrade Premium

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We have been able to use money raised through the Fairtrade Premium scheme to invest in key healthcare, educational, social and community projects, not just benefiting our own members and workers but also the surrounding community.

All the projects are approved democratically by the co-operative’s members and employees.

To date, we have invested approximately ARS $15 million (Argentinean pesos) of Fairtrade Premium in over 30 different projects to benefit our members, workers and their families as well as our local communities. 

These projects include:

  • Education
  • Local Community Improvements 
  • Production Improvements
  • Healthcare
  • Socio-economic improvements
  • Administration & training

Among the many projects implemented to date, there are two projects that particularly stand out:

  • the Tilimuqui water project - which has brought a reliable supply of fresh drinking water for the first time to the local community of Tilimuqui where many of La RIojana’s workers and their families live. This project involved the building of a 160m deep well, a 100,000 litre reservoir and a 10,000 litre water storage tank built 8m high to provide enough pressure to serve the wider community.

  • the Tilimuqui school project - which funded the construction of the area’s first secondary school, therefore enabling teenage children in the area to stay in the community and has a current intake of over 400 children.

Following the success of these two projects, construction of a new health clinic is due to start in 2016. The main aim of this project is to bring healthcare to 10,000 people living in the villages of Tilimuqui, Malliagasta and La Riojana’s wider communities.

“I believe that Fairtrade is very important to La Riojana because it allows us to expand our role in terms of social responsibility, it allows our workers who live in rural areas access to good standards of health and education, and also allows them to improve their general standard of living. The investment of the Fairtrade Premium in community projects, such as the water and school, has really incentivised our grape growers to work hard in their vineyards to obtain high quality grapes, therefore enabling us to produce high-end, market-competitive Fairtrade wines and to continue investing in projects which benefit the local communities.”

Rodolfo Griguol, chief winemaker, La Riojana co-operative