Alpaca fiber has always been part of a long and unfair supply chain. Underprivileged small-scale farmers in the rural Andes, some of whom live in extremely remote areas, sell their alpaca fiber at informal markets in nearby small towns to local middlemen. Then, these traders offer it to much bigger distributors who gather the fiber. Later on, textile companies purchase the alpaca fiber from them. This unfair supply network ultimately takes a toll on how much the herders can make, and how they benefit from an imperfect market system.
