News

Press release: Cooperatives in Agriculture have solutions for Climate Change

Kees Blokland, General Manager of Agriterra, and Juan Lucas Restrepo, Director General of The Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT (CGIAR), signed a Memorandum of Understanding online to join forces.

The birth of a co-packing idea

Baringo county, the home of BAMSCOS Union, was among the least directly affected counties in Kenya of Covid-19, in terms of infection rate. The first case was officially reported in the county on  27 July 2020 and since 10 October the case load stands at 56 infections and no fatalities reported.

‘A problem shared, is a problem solved’

Jambitor Marketing Cooperative (JMC) in South Sudan is an organisation with five producing groups and a total of 200 members, who are all involved in production and they are accessing services from the cooperative. The cooperative members are producing vegetable and cereals. They are very happy with the cooperative services. Working together has helped them to approach farming as a business and they started to invest their money in the cooperative and to sell their produce to the cooperative and paying 10% of the profit to the cooperative to support its operation.

The cooperative’s activities are marketing of the member produce, credit business, value addition to some commodities and input business. As a cooperative the members increased their production base of the cooperative activities.

Dairy Virtual Exchange Tour

APL, Asople, Fedeple, Fedeplet and La Purita, five dairy farmers’ organisations from Bolivia, participated in the First Virtual Exchange Tour organised by Agriterra Latin America. 
Although Covid19 frustrated the possibility of an on-site exchange tour, the flexibility of a remote tour allowed to discuss and analyse for a longer period, with more cooperatives, more countries and more Agripool experts. 

On the job training increased revenue of soy bean union

Admas Farmers’ Cooperative Union exported 880 ton soy beans to China in three months after a marketing training provided by Agriterra during the COVID-19 pandemic. Being forced to change the workshop from a big hotel to the union office due to COVID-19 had a very positive outcome for the union. 

Solidarity in the times of COVID-19

In Amazonas, Peru, CECAFE cooperative resorts to pre-Hispanic Minka to harvest and collect coffee. Minka is a tradition of reciprocal or communal collaborative work.
CECAFE associates 834 coffee producers from Lonya Grande, Amazonas. Usually between April and May, dayworkers from surrounding counties migrate to respond to the high demand of labour. 
Thanks to mutual help among cooperative partners and family members, farmers were able to collect 80% of their coffee on time.

La Chuspa's fight for survival in the times of COVID-19

La Chuspa-Mide is a Peruvian SACCO formed by rural families from the southern highlands, near the city of Cusco, 80% of its members are women.
Pandemic reality is harshly affecting SACCOs: strict lockdown, high prevalence of Covid19, contraction of 30% in the GDP during the second quarter of 2020 and new regulatory measures for financial institutions. 
La Chuspa faces a double risk, the reduction in the collection of the debts from partners who now see a contraction in their incomes as well as the reduction on funds placement. 

“I feel more self-confident after 3 days training

By Tran Thi Tuyet, business advisor Vietnam

In the last week of September we inspired twenty participants (Board of Director members and young farmers) from four cooperatives in Vietnam to elaborate Funnel Models and Action Plans for their young farmer groups/councils. The use of videos and an online Agripooler contributed a lot to the workshop success.