To strengthen Brazilian rural cooperativism, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply launched the Brasil Mais Cooperativo program last Thursday (04), highlights the “OCB Report”. In addition to this initiative, an ordinance was signed that expands cooperatives' access to issuing the Pronaf Aptitude Declaration (DAP) and a proposed decree that creates the Social Biofuel Seal. The objective is to benefit around 1,600 cooperatives operating in the country.
Minister Tereza Cristina signed the three measures and stated that these incentives are important to “lift small rural landowners in Brazil out of poverty, misinformation and lack of technology”.
The text that creates Brasil Mais Cooperativo establishes that the initiative supports Brazilian rural cooperativism by offering specialized assistance. The Secretary of Family Agriculture and Cooperatives, Fernando Schwanke, highlighted that many cooperatives and associations still have little capacity for medium and long-term planning and low investments in modernizing their processes.
“Cooperatives are great partners in family farming and we are going to use this system to enhance it. Organized cooperatively, small and medium-sized farmers now have greater advantages in terms of production scale, cost reduction, logistics, ease of access to inputs and production technologies”, he stated.
Another focus of Brasil Mais Cooperativo is expanding access, by cooperatives and associations, to private markets, such as supermarket chains, and institutional markets, such as the Food Acquisition Program (PAA) and the National School Meal Program (PNAE) . To this end, partnerships were created and initiatives were coordinated with government entities and cooperative representatives.
Another ordinance signed by the minister changes the rules for issuing the Pronaf Aptitude Declaration (DAP) for legal entities. The DAP is the document that identifies and qualifies the family farming audience, including its economic organizations.
According to the text, individual cooperatives and associations with a corporate structure made up of more than half of family farmers with active DAP will be entitled to issue the document. According to the previous rule, it was necessary that at least 60% of the corporate structure be made up of family farmers with active DAP.
The decree forwarded to the Civil House proposes changing the name of the Social Fuel Seal, which becomes the Social Biofuel Seal. This change will allow agricultural cooperatives that do not hold DAP Jurídica to be authorized to sell raw materials from family farming with biodiesel producing companies.
According to the Organization of Brazilian Cooperatives, this will enable more than 40 thousand small producers to participate in the National Biodiesel Production and Use Program.
