With pride, Luis Jorquera Pinto, a beekeeper from Rinconada de Doñihue, received local and regional authorities, from the University of O'Higgins and from Codelco División El Teniente, to lead the ceremony in which the honey harvesting and packaging room in Rinconada de Doñihue officially received the health certification that will allow him and other beekeepers in the sector to add value to their honey and obtain better prices in the market.

“We made an agreement with other colleagues and this place will be available for anyone who wants to come and process their honey and package it. It is an alliance to give value to our products, make the activity more profitable and be more competitive,” said Jorquera.

The facility was built thanks to an agreement between the El Teniente Division and the University of O'Higgins and its beneficiaries are beekeepers affiliated with the Local Development Program of INDAP (Agricultural Development Institute) in the O'Higgins region.

Cristian Sanhueza, Community Development Director of Codelco El Teniente Division, said that “this is a commitment based on the challenges we face in the area of sustainability and is also part of the triple value that is the basis of the divisional strategy and involves social, environmental and economic aspects.”

For Braulio Moreno, regional director of INDAP, “obtaining the sanitary resolution is the result of joint work between different actors to benefit honey producers, allowing them to access new market niches and increase the value of their final product.”

“This initiative is in line with biodiversity agreements and seeks to help the community. With the experience we have as a university, we coordinated with all the relevant actors to achieve this result, which is the accreditation of this room,” explained Pablo Cavieres Soto, technology manager of the Transfer and Innovation Department of the University of O'Higgins.

The mayor of Doñihue, Pabla Ponce, valued the support of the institutions, stating that “it is very important because with the certification we can continue growing and moving forward. There is the will and support of the university and Codelco. It is a step that adds to the resources of the Mining Royalty that we receive from the territorial equity fund and also because we were considered a mining commune.”