Centrais de cooperativas agrícolas e desenvolvimento local : a experiência da Central de Cooperativas Apícolas do Semiárido Brasileiro - Casa APIS

Abstract

The main objective of this essay was to analyze the contribution of a central cooperative organization for honey producers, production commercialization and strengthening of the associative tendency in rural areas. It also includes as a point of interest; to situate the breeding process and organizational structure of this central, evaluating business strategies adopted for market integration, identifying their socioeconomic impacts on family farms and throughout the territory. Hence, it is asked which organizational and commercial strategies were adopted by the central cooperative? What were their socioeconomic impacts on the territory in which it operates? Such issues have been analyzed with reference to the Brazilian Central Cooperative Apicultural Semiarid - House APIS - located in the city of Picos, State of Piaui. The APIS House, founded in 2005, has a social body made up of eight credit unions, operating in 52 municipalities of the states of Piauí and Ceará, covering 960 beekeepers in the productive chain of honey. Focusing on the organization of honey producers in the city of Picos, the center becomes an important economic organization of the region of Picos, an instrument fostering productive reorganization projects and establishing commercial partnerships at the national and international levels. A qualitative approach was supported by combined techniques of data collection via semi-structured interviews, conducted from a script, field observation, literature review, document analysis and some technical resources. The central cooperative studied allowed us to observe, their contribution to the consolidation of the Local Productive Arrangement (APL), around the production and marketing of honey in the region of Picos. Such an arrangement contemplates the participation of cooperatives of natural honey producers, public agencies and private entities, allowing a particular dynamic in the territory. The study also highlighted the importance of the House APIS in the organization of beekeepers, in the stability of the price of honey in the local market, the expansion of production volume and, expansion of commercialization of honey markets, bringing impacts to job creation and expansion income as well as contributing to the dynamism and local economy.