| budget |
€ 48.700,00 |
status |
execution |
| start date |
01-05-2007 |
date end |
31-03-2008 |
| location |
|
country |
brazil |
| financer |
Agriterra |
| executor |
Uniao das Cooperativas da Agricultura Familiar e Economia Solidaria do Parana |
intervention level |
national |
| Programmes |
| work area 11: Market & Chain Development | IFAP 03: Enhance capacity of farmers' organisations | |
| description |
 The National Union of Family Farming and Solidary Economy Cooperatives (Unicafes), is a young organization, established in 2005. Its establishment answered the need for representation of the interests of family farming and solidarity economy cooperatives in Brazil.
Unicafes promotes and integrates Family Farming and Solidary Economy cooperativism as a popular (...more...) |
| description |
The National Union of Family Farming and Solidary Economy Cooperatives (Unicafes), is a young organization, established in 2005. Its establishment answered the need for representation of the interests of family farming and solidarity economy cooperatives in Brazil.
Unicafes promotes and integrates Family Farming and Solidary Economy cooperativism as a popular instrument for sustainable development, reinforcing its political representation.
The regional and state level branches are also being established and have become operational. Unicafes Paraná (Unicafes-PR) was established in 2005. It has currently 123 cooperatives affiliated in 4 sectors (credit, commercialization, milk production and agricultural extension (ATER)).
In this project, Unicafes-PR will work on its service delivery through
- a needs assessment and establishment of a database for each of the sectors, but also already
- some specific action per sector (training of staff, business plans, institutionalization of lessons learned in terms of governance, …).
They will also work on their position as representative organization on state, national and international level through
- improved communication,
- exchanges on national level with other state level branches
- negotiation on policies in favor of family farming
- exchanges on international level in the IFAP network. (...less...) |
| results & observations |
Results 2008
All the activities that could not be performed in 2007 due to delay of the signing of the contract, were concluded in 08.
According to the specific objectives set on the project the results were:
SO1: Unicafes-PR is strengthened and the services delivered to the members has improved (the cooperative branches (...more...) |
| final results & observations |
Results 2008
All the activities that could not be performed in 2007 due to delay of the signing of the contract, were concluded in 08.
According to the specific objectives set on the project the results were:
SO1: Unicafes-PR is strengthened and the services delivered to the members has improved (the cooperative branches are strengthened)
Results: Unicafes-PR improved the services delivered to three branches: production (dairy) more specific to SISCLAF (System of Dairy Cooperatives with 22 members summing approximately 4.500 family farmers), ATER – Technical Assistance and Rural Extension with 4 cooperatives members and Commercialization with 18 cooperatives members summing approximately 1000 family farmers.
In the Production (Dairy) branch the experiences learned during the internship were applied in the 2 dairy platforms of Sisclaf improving the procedures and the abilities of the employees.
In the ATER, a Manual was elaborated with instructions on how to constitute this kind of cooperative. This Manual clears out the standards and procedures to create a coop. and helps to establish the guidelines for the activities among the cooperatives. A project for the Municipal Founds for ATER was elaborated and approved by the National government and will be executed in 2009.
In the Commercialization branch, Coopafi coops (coops of commercialization) were evaluated and the elaboration of the Strategic plan for the coops finalized. A workshop on Human Resources was given to the leaders of the coops, resulting in better internal relations.
Besides the interventions related to individual branches, a data base of the coops associated to Unicafes was elaborated and it is available on the web-site. Two meetings were held to discuss and elaborate the strategic plan of Unicafes-PR and to identify the demands of the branches. The experiences of cooperativism were socialized trough the publication of 2 magazines that Unicafes elaborated and distributed to 250 family farmers in the Congress, to the 126 cooperatives members to socialize it with their associates and other governmental and private organizations.
SO2: Unicafes-PR is recognized as the representative of the cooperatives of Family Agriculture and Solidary Economy at state, national and international levels
Results:Unicafes-PR is recognized as the representative of the coops of Family Agriculture at national level by the cooperatives members, by the government (President of Brazil, Ministry of Agrarian Development, Secretary of Territorial Development, Secretary of Family Agriculture and Solidary Economy, Emater and others), and by the other organizations involved (Sebrae, Deser, Ocepar and others) and at international level by FIPA, REAF, Boerenbond. Some of the activities that strengthened the representation of Unicafes-PR were supported by this project, like: the exchanges between Unicafes-PR and Boerenbod, event of FIPA in Poland, meeting with Junta Nacional del Peru to discusse the coffee chain and the realization of the II Congress of Unicafes-PR in Curitiba where 250 family farmers from all branches participated.
Unicafes manage to execute the project according to the budget of the project.
Some of the activities were executed with some delay, but it didn’t affect the results expected, neither the budget.
The project was well managed and will complement other projects that are in execution.
(...less...) |
| specialisms |
| Cooperative Development & Marketing Strategies | Institutional development | Market and chain development | Policy generation | |
