On Monday, July 13 and Tuesday, July 14, Expo Milano 2015 hosted “Co-operatives empowering people for sustainable development”, an international conference on the contribution cooperatives are making to the sustainability of agro-food production chains. Hosted by Cascina Triulza – Civil Society Pavilion of Expo Milano 2015, and organized by Confcooperative, the 2-day debate witnessed the participation of Confcooperative, FAO, ICA (International Co-operative Alliance) and Ja-Chenchu (a Japanese agro-food cooperative). Representatives of agro-food cooperatives from all over the world presented an extremely wide range of experiences, each one conceived in a specific local area, but all capable of offering inspiring examples of how the cooperative sector can substantially help make our food more sustainable, and at the same time promote social participation and economic development.

 

Preserving resources for future generations

“Agriculture will only have a future if we are clever enough to give back to our future generations an environment that is at least the same as it was it became ours - says Giorgio Mercuri president of Fedagri Confcooperative – We need to train and educate people, both consumers and producers, to ensure that we raise awareness of the extent of the environmental impact that agricultural production can have”. The cooperative is extremely aware of the theme of environmental sustainability, due to the central role we assign to its effects on the land and its people – continues Mercuri –There are large cooperative groups that are already way ahead, and which for some time have been tackling the themes of surplus management, renewable energy production, and the environmental impact of every single production, from the barn or the countryside to the choice of eco-friendly packaging materials”.

 

The agri-food cooperatives that focus on sustainability

Cooperatives in the agri-food sector are both local and global at the same time, because they are a worldwide phenomenon but also extremely deep-rooted in the individual areas where they operate. Overall, the characteristics that link them to one another are their close focus on environmental sustainability, the promotion of social solidarity and an idea of development as the product of the hard work done by people, rather than finance. All of these aspects were indeed discussed during the Confcooperative conference in Cascina Triulza. Many case studies were presented, from Japanese experiences involving recovering food waste to produce animal feed, to Turkish strategies for improving the sustainability of the olive oil chain and Indian projects designed to rationalize the use of fertilizers and phytopharmaceuticals. The most important Italian companies were present, starting with Coop, Conserve Italia and Sigma, who presented their plans to adopt sustainable and ethical packaging, in a bid to reduce the impact of the points of sale and of food waste, from the seed to the shelf.