Friesland Colony (German: Kolonie Friesland; Spanish: Colonia Friesland) is a Mennonite settlement in San Pedro Department, in eastern Paraguay, about 45 kilometres (28mi) east of the Paraguay River. It was founded in 1937 by settlers who left the Fernheim Colony in the Chaco, and was the first Mennonite colony in eastern Paraguay. According to statistics compiled for 2022 by ACOMEPA, the association representing Paraguay's Mennonites, the colony had 672 inhabitants.
History
In 1929 a group of Mennonites fled the Soviet Union; part of this group founded the Fernheim Colony in the central Chaco in 1930. Because of the hard climatic, economic and social conditions of the early years, about a third of Fernheim's inhabitants left the colony in July 1937 to look for better prospects in eastern Paraguay. The same year they founded Friesland, naming it after Friesland, one of the regions of origin of the Mennonites in the Netherlands and Germany. ACOMEPA's statistics give 745 founding immigrants from Russia. According to the colony, 135 families (about 750 people) settled on about 6,911 hectares (17,080 acres), with farms and houses laid out in villages.
The lack of a suitable market soon became a problem. Cotton, grown from 1937 to 1945, was not a success, and from 1945 to 1955 many settlers earned their living as employees, craftsmen, cattle raisers or carters. The economic uncertainty of these years led to considerable emigration.
Economy
In the 1960s the colony bought more land as its economy stabilised, and the settlers returned to arable farming. From 1956 to 1964 they mainly grew maize, marketed through the cooperative; wheat and soybeans followed from 1965, and no-till farming was introduced in 1989.
Demographics
The colony gives its current population as about 260 households with about 680 people. ACOMEPA counted 672 inhabitants in 2022.
Paraguay