It is critical for agri-cooperatives to be innovative to add value to produce, to respond to evolving consumer needs and to take advantage of new market opportunities in an increasingly competitive environment, leaders from the Cogeca Presidency Business Forum underlined today.
To encourage innovation, the 2014 European Awards for Cooperative Innovation were presented.
Speaking at the Business Forum, Mr Pees highlighted how being innovative and adding value to products ultimately benefits its members the farmers. Joining cooperatives enable farmers to join forces to market their produce and add value to produce to get a higher market return”. But the forum not only addressed issues related to product and technological innovation, but also financial innovation which is critical in today’s turbulent commodity markets where there is extreme volatility.
Speaking at the event on financial innovation, keynote speaker Professor Dr. ir. Joost M.E. Pennings from Maastricht University and Wageningen University explained “Financial innovation, like using futures contracts to help hedge against risk, is crucial for the performance of agri-cooperatives. By using financial instruments (i.e. futures/options), it helps them to decrease and manage the price volatility which increases members’ net proceeds and can create extra value for cooperative”.
Mr Pees went on to say “Agri-cooperatives can also use their unique relations with members and take advantage of the additional flow of information gained throughout the whole value chain, as they engage in transactions while they also control and participate in the decision making of the cooperative business”.
Presenting the Awards at the Ceremony, Cogeca President Christian Pees said “We received a good number of applications for these highly prestigious Awards this year which aim to stimulate innovation and show how innovative European agricultural cooperatives are. They also aim to encourage other cooperatives to step up their competitiveness and positioning in the food chain and to create more innovative products. Innovation allows efficiency gains in productivity, with an optimal use of resources. This is critical in view of increasing food demand, limited resources and a competitive marketplace. Agri-cooperatives need to produce more and better products, in a sustainable manner and ensure economic gains and a better market return benefiting farmers. The three Awards presented here today show how agri-cooperatives can respond to the evolving needs of consumers and the food chain and capture more of the added value of the product”.
The Special Achievement Award for innovation in food processing was presented by Mr Pees to the French cereal cooperative “Dijon Cereales” which used an innovative approach in creating a long term research project to increase the added value of its cereal products.
The second Award for “Bioeconomy/Resource Efficiency” was presented by Cogeca Vice-President Martin Pycha to the Spanish agri-cooperative Valle del Jerte for its innovative approach in creating a special consultation system to advice farmers on the more efficient use of water. Valle del Jerte, in collaboration with its members, has developed an efficient information system to monitor, measure and analyse irrigation needs; Results from the project showed how it had caused an efficient use of water, as well as an improvement in quality.
The third award for Entrepreneurship/CSR/Member service was presented by Cogeca Vice-President Maria-Antonia Figueiredo to the Spanish cooperative Cooperativa Ganadera de Caspe for its innovative approach in creating a network of excellence among the executives of the various cooperative units across the supply chain to provide tailor made support to members in their decision-making. This system has led to a big increase in its transactions with its members as well as an overall improvement in the economic performance of the cooperative.
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