201 Ingenio Palo Gordo The Central American Plantations Corporation – CAPCO – acquired Palo Gordo, a 17 caballeria estate located in Guatemala, Central America in 1929. They started to harvest sugar cane in Palo Gordo and set up a sugar mill which began operations in 1939, with the capacity to shred a daily amount of one thousand tons of cane. On July 12, 1962 the Palo Gordo Sugar Mill was bought in public auction by 186 of the sugar cane farmers and businessmen who delivered their cane to the mill; they were organized in the Cooperativa Agrícola Industrial Ingenio Palo Gordo, S.A. (Industrial Farming Cooperative Palo Gordo Sugar Mill, Inc.). The new group began programs to increase the milling capacity and achieved a significant expansion by increasing their daily milling capacity to 4,000 tons. Twenty-six years later, they started harvesting the cane with the cut, pick-up and transport method. Plague and disease control technologies were introduced, banning the use of chemical insecticides for the sugar cane harvest. After the gradual process of automation occurred, additional mills acquired, and continued improvement, IPG exceeded sugar production expectation to 2,773,000 quintals (a unit of weight equal to a hundred weight 112 lbs. or formerly 100 lbs.) by 2012.