Located in the Alberto Arvelo Torrealba municipality in Sabaneta ,Barinas state, this plant is to process the yield of 120 hectares planted with tomatoes. Having been shut down for more than 8 years, it was reopened thanks to an initiative by the government, and 31,127 associates of the National Guard’s savings bank, with an investment of 370 million Bs.

Its overhaul and reactivation is part of the governmental social plan for the security of food supply, within the goals of the sustainable development plan in Boconó-Masparro

National Guard Brigadier General Martín Albert Espinoza, president of the National Guard savings bank, recalled that from “1997 to 2002 there were several attempts to reactivate the plant, but all failed due to the absence of a coherent project , a stable and well synchronized structural organization, and political will.

He stated that “...thanks to an agreement between the National Guard’s savings bank and Corpoandes (a governmental corporation for the promotion of the development of the Venezuelan Andes region) which turned the plant over , on a free loan, for us to operate, we will be able to elaborate high quality, low price products that compete with those in the national market.”

The installation of this plant is the realization of the will of organized agricultural producers, most of them beneficiaries of the Santo Domingo irrigating system, who were initially supported and promoted by the state run Corporation of the Andes.

On that occasion, “the Corporation assessed the situation, in order to put into effect, within a short period of time, the most convenient option to strengthen the production of tomato, through an integral perspective that includes the formulation of the project, and agronomical aspects of commercialization and industrialization.”, he said.

He indicated that the yield “between January and May, the months for cultivation of tomato, will be of 108 tons per day , which will allow a national production of 3000 tons of «Sentinel» tomato sauce and tomato paste.”

The insertion in the Venezuelan productive process of this plant, with a capacity to process 315 hectares cultivated with tomatoes, will generate new jobs: 67 direct and 839 indirect.

The reactivation of the agricultural-industrial center, required the subscription of a strategic agreement with Caigua de Altagracia de Orituco for the processing and commercialization of products derived from tomato, which will benefit 2,516 people, and as other crops are incorporated to this production project, a total of 10,000 people.

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