Tierra Verde Pushes Federal Court on Land-Registry Delays

The Cooperative Council in San Vicente announced on Friday that it has petitioned the Federal Court to intervene in what it calls a systemic backlog at the Federal Office for Cooperative Affairs. The office, which administers land registration and fair-price scheme eligibility, has not processed new applications for nearly eight months, leaving more than three hundred smallholder farms unable to access federal export guarantees or participate in cooperative price-pooling arrangements.

The delay has created a two-tier system: farms already registered can sell through the federal exchange at protected prices; those waiting cannot. The Council argues this violates the founding principle of equal access to federal services across all regions. A spokesperson for the office in Meridian said last week that staffing constraints and a shift in filing procedures have slowed processing, but declined to estimate when the backlog would clear.

The case comes as coffee prices at the federal exchange have remained volatile, and as smaller farms struggle to compete with larger operations that have already secured their registry status. The Council is seeking an emergency order requiring the office to process applications within ninety days and to establish a temporary satellite office in San Vicente.