Gromada Credit Union was the first agricultural credit cooperative Oikocredit financed in Ukraine. In 1996, four women started the cooperative with the aim of providing small consumer and trade loans to market traders. Unable to approach traditional banks, farmers also began to turn to the women for support with their agricultural projects. Today, the cooperative […]
The Amazon’s Unexpected Chocolatiers
The indigenous Kichwa live deep in Ecuadors Amazonian rainforest, a region whose particular climate and geology conditions are ideal for growing cacao, especially the rare Cacao Nacional variety, prized for its floral, fruity, black peppery flavor. But for years, the beans fetched meager prices about 20 cents a pound as the Kichwa sold their harvest […]
Kallari
A Kichwa rainforest cooperative of 850 families with small farms in the Ecuadorian Amazon. An average family has a small plot (2% of total farm size) planted with cacao trees, part of their farm with other crops, and more than half of their land remains as rainforest reserves. Kallari has received international acclaim as the […]
Coopercentral Aurora ensures families’ welfare
What do meat, poultry, pork, dairy and pizza have to do with each other? In the city of Chapecó the production and sale of these products sustain lives. Dairy and pizza are some of the 700-strong product range of one of Brazils most successful cooperatives, Coopercentral Aurora, whose membership extends to more than 60,000 farmers. […]
Coopercentral Aurora
Coopercentral Aurora is one of Brazil’s most successful agricultural cooperatives. Since eight cooperatives got together in 1969 they have industrialised their production and expanded into a large scale agro-industrial business.
Co-operation can move mountains
If a huge stone is in the way of 20 people, they could not pass if they individually tried to remove it. However, if the 20 people come together and work under the orientation of one of them, jointly they will remove the stone and open the way to everyone. Theodor Amstad Theodor Amstad, a […]
Sicredi Pioneira RS
Sicredi Pioneira RS is the one arm of the Sicredi credit union group founded by Padre Theodor Amstad. He founded it on the principles of Germany’s Raiffeisen system of credit unions.
Saving the Potatoes of the Andes
The potato was originally domesticated around the shores of Lake Titicaca, and the Andes are still home to thousands of potato varieties. Potatoes here come in a rainbow of colours: red, pink, purple, yellow, orange, black, blue. This invaluable wealth of genetic diversity is at risk from increasing agricultural standardization and climate change, but a […]
Cauqueva
Cauqeva is a cooperative of small-scale farmers in the Jujuy region of Argentina producing traditional Andean crops which helps them improve production and market their products.
A Place to Share Happiness and Sadness
I was born in the Year of Chicken, so I’m said to be very hard-working, kind-hearted, easy-going and honest. I totally believe in the horoscope. Cao Thi The, 43, is one of the 25 members of the Kim Thanh Handicraft Cooperative in Hai Duong province, in the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam. She married […]