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Andres Botran - productivity of rural farmers in Guatemala
  • Andres Botran wrote:

    Sirs,
    I am the first Secretary of Food Security of Guatemala.  I am an engineer and am very concerned about the issues you raise. I now am the president of a sugar processing plant in Guatemala so we are constantly working and repairing equipment.  In Spanish, a sugar processing plant is called a "ingenio" which in Spanish means ingenious.  We have more than 60 engineers at my ingenio.  We have a collection of: chemical, mechanical, industrial, electrical, systems, computer, agricultural, civil, materials engineers.  We have built the sugar industry in Guatemala by buying surplus and obsolete parts of old mills in other countries and tweaked them into production.  We are EXTREMELY GOOD at modifying existing tools and machines to make them work for us.  In short, we have a ton of academic and practical experience.  We also have machinery, tools, etc.  We have tons of scrap metal.  And now we have your plans.

    Five years ago, I was the first secretary of the SESAN (Secretary of Food Security of Guatemala), a cabinet level position during President Berger´s government.  Even though I am now running my company, I am extremely concerned about our food insecurity and lack of productivity of our rural farmers.  They don´t have the resources to be more productive since they basically only have hand tools.

    I saw your initiative in Reader´s Digest and peaked my interest.  I am now REALLY interested.  I would like to have a chat with you to explore having a laboratory here in Guatemala.  I can put it in our sugar mill and I can get the support in time and resources from other sugar mills in our country.  Engineers LOVE solving problems and when we are talking about the possiblity of changing lives, they will be in full support.

    Pls let me know how we can get some traction in this direction.  I am a friend of President Perez Molina and of the US ambassador and the head of USAID here in Guatemala.  I am sure we can get a whole lot of support and funding for this initiative.

    I don´t want to do it by myself.  You have the experience and have a learning curve that should be taken into consideration.

    Let me know if this is interesting to you. I am also an Aspen Institute Global Leadership Network Fellow.   By the way, you can google my name, you should get some info.

    Best regards and awaiting your news,
    Andres Botran
     
  • 4 Comments sorted by
  • Where can I find Andres Botran's email address? I would like to ask him what the sugar refineries in Guatemala are doing with the left-over waste beet pulp that is generated during the process of extracting sugar. I am researching a potential use for it that could be very beneficial to the community. Thanks.
     
  • Andres wrote:

    Thanks for your question. In Guatemala we produce sugar from sugar cane. The final products from the sugar process are bagasse and molasses. The molasses we sell to distilleries that make ethanol for fuel, chemicals, beverages, pharmaceuticals.
    The bagasse that remains from the crushing of the cane is sent to boilers in our plant to produce steam which is used to generate electricity for our plant and also is sold to the national electric grid.
    The beet process is very different and I don´t know how the beet sugar producers use the waste.
    Hope this clarifies the differences.
    Best regards,
    Andres
     
  • You may have heard of a group of leadership coaches who came down with John Maxwell to help raise leadership of the entire nation.  Guatemala, while I did not go I know a lot of the team that went who may have connections to assist. 

    I'd love to help you create an education center within your factory in Guatemala.  I believe it could revolutionize education in your country and help bring your children's children out of poverty and liberate the country!  

    You're country seems to still be suffering from the after effects of a devastating earthquake back in the 80's I believe it was.  My friend was a news correspondent there at the time.  

    With your support we could truly make a difference for your people!

    Not only in Guatemala, but then around the world by making Guatemala the FIRST Open-SOURCE Country!

    WE CAN DO IT MY FRIEND!  I am here to HELP!

     

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