AGACA’s multiplier event in Spain

AGACA (Galician Association of Agri-food Cooperatives) hosted AgriCoopValue’s final conference in Santiago de Compostela (Spain) on the 27th of July. The event could gather representatives not only from 6 of the 7 project partners, but also from an array of cooperatives, social economy businesses and public and private institutions in Galicia.

It was a favorable occasion to present the objectives and results of the project, which include not only a training itinerary and online training platform, but also an exhaustive analysis of 5 subsectors (olive oil, wine, dairy, livestock and fruit and vegetables) which resulted in the identification of 299 variables and 101 indicators of social value, among other findings.

Additionally, there were four talks and a round table. Regarding the talks, one of them focused on the Postoiro cooperative, which is a small cooperative that specializes in horticulture sector and constituted the Galician case study for the project; thanks to its participation in AgriCoopValue they could determine that their social value in 2021 was superior to 800.000 €.

Another talk detailed the monetization of social value in COVAP, an Andalusian cooperative with 4,500 farmers, which was given by its president Ricardo Delgado. COVAP totals around 20 million euros of non-market social value.

Regarding the European situation, two talks explored the operation of agri-food cooperatives in Ireland and Portugal and possible collaborations with Galician entities and, in addition, a round table with representatives of entities from Croatia and Latvia dealt with social aspects of agricultural cooperatives and the rural environment in Eastern Europe and the main differences in the monetization of social value.

The Regional Minister for Rural Affairs, José González, spoke at the end of the Conference with a plea for cooperatives to continue their work on bettering their ability to create added value as well as a strong economic and social network in rural areas, together with Carmen Rodríguez, president of AGACA, and Gabriel Trenzado, director of Cooperativas Agro-alimentarias de España.

Previously, on the 26th, all the partners of the project participated on the final steering committee meeting.