Grupo "Tres Colonias", compartir para crecer.

The Argentinian central milk basin host small and medium producers dedicated to the dairy farm, supplemented by agriculture and livestock. These activities require large amounts of machinery, impossible to acquire in an individual way, so a group of shared tools was formed and named as The Three Colonies. Created after a year of diagramming, it began in 1991. Seventeen producers of varying sizes joined together to buy and share capacious tillage equipment, which the investment and operating cost was more convenient to do in group than individually. Organized through a circuit of work according to the proximity of fields with a quota of hectares, all used the equipment in time and form. A tractor driver leads, repairs, maintains the equipment, orders and manages shift work. It was named "The Three Colonies" from the villages where their members live (Ramona, Marini and Coronel Fraga). As the Group took hold, the buys and fieldwork were done cooperatively, which allowed them to acquire more tools and add staff. In 1993 the Group officially joined the Rural Change Program, thus strengthening and improving it technically and personally. This group practice generated the formation of other similar groups; the experience was presented at various symposia, conferences and events, at home and abroad. The essence of this work was to change the mentality of its members in many ways, working grouped together without losing their identity, surviving the neoliberal stage and allowing their permanence but, more importantly, building in their growth as humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]