Brazilian cooperatives seeking innovation as differentiation

Date:04-06-2023

In September of last year, the UPL, together with some cooperatives in Brazil, which participate in the Cooperup program, visited Barcelona, and one of the he program of this visit was an innovation course at ESADE and visits to PIER 1, an innovation hub in the capital of Catalonia.

Inspired by the city's climate of innovation, we invited cooperatives to participate in an Innovation award where they should, at our next meeting to bring cases that were inspired by this trip and by this exchange of experience.

The Program was a success, and several cooperatives brought their innovation cases, and we can see how prepared and able these companies are to implement ideas and make innovation profitable and agile. Ideas that quickly left the drawing board and brought immediate gains to cooperatives and their members.

The themes were focused on innovation itself and sustainability. Below I share the main cases and the benefits generated by them:

Cocamar's case was the creation of an ecosystem with meteorological measurements in the regions served by Cocamar, providing an environment of assertiveness for decision-making regarding management and diseases and better risk management.

17 units were implemented by September 2022 and with projections of another 37 stations by the end of March 2023

The data is collected by the equipment itself, and considers the combination of 9 meteorological models for adequate adjustments to each climate reality, contemplating the following atmospheric variables:

• Volume and Probability of Precipitation
  

• Temperature and Relative Humidity of Air
  

• Cloud Coverage / Altitude
  

• Wind Speed and Direction
  

• Leaf wetness
  

• Atmospheric pressure
  

The information is in the palm of the farmer’s hand in real time, including recommendations for the best times to apply agricultural pesticides.

Cocamar had excellent gains with the project that we highlight:

• Exclusive meteorological network sized for Cocamar's area of operation
  

• Robust information for better decision making in the field
  

• More than 2,000 producers using the network of stations
  

• Assertiveness of 82% Rain Forecast, 3 days in advance
  

The second Case was the Renewable Energy Generation Program of Holambra Cooperativa Agroindustrial

The Objective was based on one of the pillars of the cooperative, which is to guarantee the sustainability of the businesses, cooperating with the strengthening of the value chain and preserving the environment.

The project was to promote and finance the cooperative and the farmers to use solar energy as a way of producing energy for the rural properties of the cooperative members and for the industrial units of the cooperative.

5 photovoltaic plants were installed within the cooperatives' facilities and another 102 plants on rural properties.

The results from the 107 plants were fantastic:

• BRL 57.0 Mi of investments
  

• 192.0 thousand m2 of facilities
  

• Reduction of  132.0 thousand Ton of CO2 in 25 years
  

• 1 Mi trees saved to eliminate CO2 corresponding to the energy consumption generated
  

A motto that I really liked about Holambra was INNOVATION IS SYNONYMOUS OF TRANSFORMING, which resulted in the donation of two plants to municipal day care centers, balancing the cooperative's ESG pillars a lot.

Another outstanding project was presented by LAR, which created an Innovation Workshop with the cooperative's members.

This Workshop had the leaders of the cooperatives and some cooperative members who had the opportunity to improve the development programs and family integration associated with a focus on innovation.

38 leaders of the cooperative and 52 cooperated farmers were present, whose objectives were:

• Identify difficulties and opportunities for improvement in production processes, technical assistance, and customer service, as well as potential solutions to these demands.
  

• Promoting interaction between associates and staff at LAR in a process of generating ideas.
  

• Generate engagement and perceived value for greater profitability for associates.
  

The discussions were separated into panels focusing on the following topics:

1. Relationship with the Cooperate/Associate
   

2. Seeds and Planting
   

3. Commercialization of Crop Inputs
   

4. Soils and Nutrition
   

5. Management
   

6. Commercialization and Receipt of Grains
   

7. Property Management
   

An entire journey of innovation was designed with the cooperative members, which raised more than 175 problems, 172 of which with solutions. From this work, a list of 35 actions was generated and 40% have already been implemented.

And among the non-measurable benefits of the project are:

Strengthening the company's culture of innovation, through the co-creation strategy.

Shared knowledge and experiences; Value perceived by participating associates and the methodology validated and applied to other business areas.

Coopavel took the phrase, if life gives you lemons, let's take the opportunity to make lemonade where during the COVID Crisis in 2019/2020, Coopavel's 15 industries greatly increased the consumption of sanitizing and hygiene products and cleaning, which created a strong dependence on external supply and a considerable increase in costs.

The idea came from one of the Cooperative's managers who saw an opportunity for technological innovation in the industrial process and took advantage of this process to produce sanitizing products. From this idea, Coop Clean was born.

Today, Coop Clean offers the Cooperative’s internal customer products at cost price and has allowed the cooperative to explore a new market, surpassing competitors with higher quality results and lower application costs.

Present in four segments: Automotive, Laundry, Industrial and General and with a monthly production of 50 thousand liters per month of cleaning and sanitizing products, the cooperative already envisages an expansion with the objective of expanding production to 300 thousand liters per month.

Among the impacts of the project, we had:

• 22% reduction in costs for this type of material
  

• Generation of income and jobs
  

• Environmental gain using biodegradable raw materials and the complete treatment of effluents generating zero pollutants in the process.
  

And for the next cycle, we are launching the Cooperup Inova Tank Program, aimed at solving the challenges of cooperatives in an innovative way and the result of learning and insights born at Cooper UP Negócios Barcelona 2022.

This will be the greatest challenge of cooperativism in Brazil for the Startups community. A program in partnership and curated by Agtech Garage, the largest innovation hub in Brazilian agribusiness.

Three themes were chosen for the challenge:

Communication: How to communicate effectively with the different generations that permeate the agrobusiness in Brazil.

ESG: How to Maximize Value Capture with the ESG Practices We've Performed.

Innovation: How to leverage innovation in the cooperative environment in a structured way

In May 2023, we will launch together with Agtech making the call for startups that would help us to solve these problems, in July the first validations will take place and in August 2023, startups will be making presentations of their technologies to these cooperatives.

The selected startups will be helped to test their solutions with cooperatives and with UPL.

For us, it will be gratifying to be able to provide this type of interaction between cooperatives and an innovation hub to produce these changes together, anticipating needs and building links between all.

"Innovation is the ability to see change as an opportunity not a threat"

Steve Jobs