Building Strength Through Co-Operation

Farmer co-operatives in South Africa and Peru are set to improve their profitability, productivity, resilience and competitiveness in the marketplace as a result of a five-year, US$7,7 million grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

- Izak Hofmeyr

This is the second project co-ordinated by the cattle genetics co-operative Genex, headquartered in Shawano, Wisconsin. It builds on a previous project that commenced in 2010 through similar grant-funded activities.

Genex is the programme partner for the USAID Cooperative Development Program (CDP), which focuses on building the capacity of co-operative businesses for self-reliance, local ownership and sustainability. As a co-operative itself, Genex believes unwaveringly in the value of living out the co-operative principle – something the Sotho maxim of ‘motho ke motho ka batho’ (a person is a person because of other people) embodies so perfectly.

Growth through support

Genex has been active in South Africa since 2010 to help build agricultural co-operative businesses. The goal is to elevate these developing businesses as suppliers to local and regional processors, sellers of value-added products, and buyers of inputs from local and regional companies. The strategy includes a business-driven approach to helping farmers run strong commercialscale businesses.

In the previous round of funding, Genex CDP activities in South Africa have helped 25 co-operatives achieve substantial growth. In eight years, the co-operatives experienced a 713% growth in sales, 510% growth in profit and near-total growth in patronage dividends.

With this new round, which commenced in September 2018 with the new five year, $7,7 million grant, the intention is to further support dairy and beef producers and their co-operatives. The overall goal is to improve these producers’ and co-operatives’ profitability, productivity, resilience and competitiveness in the marketplace.

Capacity building