World Food Day Colloquium 2012

Contributions of cooperatives to global food security

16 October 2012 | University of Hohenheim

Overview

To enable and strengthen the struggle of people to improve their food security was one of the cooperatives’ initial points of action; e.g. in the “Brotverein” of Raiffeisen in Germany 165 years ago – and is still the stimulus of new cooperatives and self-help groups in various countries and regions. However, cooperatives have also been instrumentalized, by establishing them "top-down". These times seem to come to an end and there is a process of reconciliation of the top-down cooperatives with the bottom-up approaches, making the general concept of cooperatives more attractive than ever.

In the International Year of Cooperatives, the World Food Day Colloquium 2012 discussed the specific roles of cooperatives in this process and their different contributions to global food security. The Colloquium also stimulated the debate regarding institutional and political enabling environment needed and learn from best practices.