|
AFCNA’s Vision - North American Alpaca Fiber Industry |
- Goals
- Assess & continually improve quality of alpaca fiber and its processing and products.
- Enable all grades (fine & coarse alike) of alpaca fiber to be utilized.
- Allow participation in North American alpaca fiber industry by as many people as wish to participate - inclusive not exclusive perspective.
- Generate viable income for North American alpaca farmers & textile mills.
- Focus on large volume commercial and consumer alpaca fiber industry.
- Participants
- Farmers growing alpaca fiber.
- Vendors of alpaca products.
- Product manufacturers & service providers.
- Farmers' cooperative.
- Farmers' cooperative
- Widely used in US agriculture to maximize income to all participating farmers from all grades of their agricultural commodities.
- Provides structure coordinating Participants to achieve Goals.
c
- Operates pipeline from raw alpaca fiber to finished product:
- Economies of scale,
- Centralized management, and
- Vertical integration.
- Provides market place for products made by the cooperative & independent manufacturers.
- Understanding cooperative business model - known for function more than form:
- Service to members at cost - net income distributed to participating farm members,
- One level of Federal taxation - no tax at cooperative corporate level, and
- "Cooperative advantage" - captures for members the "consumer value" added with manufacture of agricultural commodities into consumer products.
- Alpaca Fiber Cooperative of North America, Inc. ("AFCNA") with 1,200 alpaca farm members (many have farm stores) is only US national based alpaca fiber cooperative:
- Marketing Division - operates fiber to product pipeline (collect & process fiber and develop & make products) and distributes net proceeds to fiber submitting members, and
- Purchasing Division - operates market place (venue, inventory, sales force, marketing strategy & accounting) for alpaca products & distributes to participating members net profits from sales to members.
- Distinguish products made with North American alpaca fiber from those made with off shore fiber
- Quality - a key differentiator for fiber ands products.
- Identify - A North American alpaca fiber certification mark has been developed by AFCNA.
- University & college support
- Product development,
- Product performance testing,
- Market development & marketing strategies,
- Quality strategies for alpaca fiber and its processing and products,
- Management guidance, and
- Grant writing.
|
