There are more than 570 million farmers to feed the world! In Brazil, we have 5 million of them, where only 1% are large properties, extending over a thousand hectares.
However, Family Farming is a cradle of food, energy, environmental, and human security for the entire planet and these important families require and need Cooperativism more than ever. Little ones become big ones through the Cooperatives!
I´ve always heard, from the majority of corporate farms, I mean, those who have lucidity, that cooperatives are essential because they mean education and prosperity for their members, in the same way, which the large agro-industrial corporations want to have cooperatives in their Supply Chain.
And how, admirably, brilliant Cooperatives create their brands, taking the image of their members to the consumer market through supermarket shelves.
Therefore, the Cooperative isn´t just important for those who want to grow, It´s vital for anyone who wants to remain big, competitive, and active in the market.
The vision of prosperity for all, which OCB president, Mr.Márcio Lopes defends, is essential and the only way to achieve prosperity, regardless of the size or potential of each individual and their operation.
Family farming. Agricultural Families.
It´s the most loved and desirable, name that has immense charismatic power to reach the minds of consumer citizens through their hearts.
Cooperatives, which represent the rational organisation of creative forces, the option for the good of all, were born from human suffering, hard-hearted challenges, and difficulties, that were and are still to be swamped.
In Brazil, Cooperatives bring together more than 1 million rural producers who are responsible for a considerable 55% of all national agricultural production.
In this panorama, Family Farming has in cooperative its legitimate safe home, its strength.
In Cooperatives, in the system, and inter-cooperation, everyone, with no exception, needs to learn continuously and no one can be left behind.
And, no less important, Family Farming also needs to create its successors, by encouraging young people to see all this admirable New Agribusiness, through super dimensioning, that is, as “Agro-bio-citizenship” itself!
Peace, union, values, meaning of life, and, especially, of living on Earth!
I am referring to a conscious Agriculture, full of health, union, sharing, and cooperation, including counting on the strength of women from Family Farming and acting proactively in the growing cooperative movements.
These are Brasilian Agricultural Families, serving consumer families, from every field such as in commerce, industry, services, etc.
Here on our Blue Planet, evolutive processes require continuous human cooperation, whether in industry, in transport by land, sea, and air, or all other areas.
Regarding the respectable agricultural sector, it’s no different! The concept of Cooperatives is, no doubt, the main strength of our admirable Family Farming, essential in the food sector around the world.
Prof.Dr.José Luiz Tejon for Brasilian Yearbook of Family Farming 2024.
