Co-ops: Key factor in eradicating hunger

LUIZ BEDUSCHI

IN 2012, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the International Year of Cooperatives (IYC) to recognise their essential role in the global economy and sustainable development. Since then, the International Day of Cooperatives is celebrated every first Saturday of July. This year, we commemorate this day under the slogan Cooperatives Building a Better Future for All.

In a significant gesture, 2025 was declared the International Year of Cooperatives to be celebrated under the theme Cooperatives Build a Better World, underlining these organisations' continued relevance.

Co-operatives, especially in the agrifood sector, play a crucial role in the fight against hunger and malnutrition. This issue is particularly important in Latin America and the Caribbean, where food and nutrition security are a growing concern.

According to the SOFI (State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World) 2023 report, undernourishment reached 6.5 per cent in 2022, affecting 7.2 million people in Latin America and an alarming 16.3 per cent in the Caribbean. This data underscores the urgency of finding effective and sustainable solutions to combat hunger.

The FAO has identified co-operatives as key allies in this fight, highlighting the importance of family farming in the agrifood chain. This approach helps reduce power asymmetries and promotes decent work, strengthens territorial governance, and fosters public-private partnerships.

In April 2023, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution to promote the social and solidarity economy as a means of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The FAO strongly supports this resolution, recognising that the social and solidarity economy can foster voluntary co-operation, mutual aid and democratic and participatory governance.

The FAO's regional office is working hard on the co-operative agenda to transform agrifood systems. With more than three million co-operatives worldwide and 28,000 in Latin America and the Caribbean, the impact of this model is indisputable. These co-operatives bring together six million members, boosting entrepreneurship, economic empowerment and sustainable and inclusive development.

The importance of co-operatives lies in their capacity to stimulate governance and territorial development, being engines for the transformation of agrifood systems. The FAO has worked to improve the institutional and regulatory frameworks, collaborating with various organisations and specialists to present the Model Law for Agrifood Cooperatives to the Latin American and Caribbean Parliament (Parlatino). This law seeks to strengthen institutional mechanisms and frameworks that promote associativity and co-operative identity, focusing on equality and inclusion.

Likewise, the FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean is renewing a memorandum of understanding with the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) to continue strengthening the co-operative model, celebrating more than 15 years of joint work.

This work must continue. As an organisation, we call for the continued strengthening of these alliances, highlighting their role as an accelerating agent in the fulfilment of the SDGs and as an essential ally in the fight against hunger.

The future of food security and sustainable development in our region depends largely on strengthening and supporting co-operatives as part of a series of instances in which we must continue to work for a better future for all.

Luiz Beduschi is the FAO Senior Land Development Policy Officer for Latin America and the Caribbean