Tosepan: An Indigenous Cooperative Economy in the Mountains of Puebla

Union de Cooperativas Tosepan is Mexico's oldest Indigenous cooperative movement, founded in 1977 (formally registered 1980) by Nahua and Totonac communities around Cuetzalan del Progreso, Puebla, to escape exploitative middlemen and build a self-managed local economy. The union now links three civil associations and eight cooperatives spanning organic coffee and pepper farming, community savings and microfinance (Tosepantomin), housing, health, ecotourism and renewable energy, reaching roughly 35,000 members across 430 villages in 29 municipalities. Tosepan's coffee agroforestry system grows crops beneath a canopy of native shade trees, and its nursery propagates roughly a million native trees and plants a year for reforestation and farm restoration. In 2017, its microfinance-for-housing model, Tosepantomin, won the European Microfinance Award for expanding decent housing access without displacing families from their land.