ON THE ROLE OF COOPERATIVES IN CHANGING AGRICULTURE: Valuable Italian experiences

The Italian Foreign Trade Agency ITA/ICE traditionally organizes meetings on various agricultural topics at the International Agricultural Fair. This year, the Italians shared their experience with Serbian cooperatives on the role of cooperatives in the changing agriculture.

– We are primarily interested in improving the system of cooperative organization modeled on Italian cooperatives, which would mean that cooperatives from primary agricultural production would expand to other sectors, such as processing, services, trade and distribution – explains the President of the Cooperative Association of Vojvodina, Jelena Nestorov Bizonj. – We are also distinguished by the number of cooperatives. Although in Serbia, especially in Vojvodina, we have cooperatives with more than a hundred cooperatives and several hundred subcontractors, the average cooperative has about twenty cooperatives and about a hundred subcontractors. In Italy, there are also cooperatives with thousands of members, which significantly improves their market position.
Within the ITA/ICE conference, a Memorandum of Strategic Cooperation was signed between the Cooperative Alliance of Vojvodina and the Italian Cooperative Alliance Legacoop Agroalimentare.