In southern Brazil, a cooperative of 600 farming families has become one of Latin America's largest producers of agroecological rice, harvesting 14,000 tonnes a year from 3,000 hectares without chemical pesticides.
The Cooperative of Settled Workers of the Porto Alegre Region (Cootap) brings together families from the Landless Workers' Movement (MST) who won access to land through Brazil's agrarian reform. Under the country's constitution, land must serve a "social function", and the families farm public land on the condition that they produce food and protect the environment.
"The struggle for land has created a sense of unity, cooperation, and mutual support among us, which is fundamental to our work," said Cootap President Nelson Krupinski.
Spread across 35 settlements, the cooperative is run democratically, with one representative for every five to fifteen families taking part in decision-making assemblies. Alongside rice, members farm a further 2,000 hectares of vegetables, fruit, dairy cattle and fish. Cootap also adds value to its produce under its own brand, Terra Livre Agroecológica, selling jams, juices, tomato sauces and even rice beer.
The cooperative is investing in its own independence. It runs a biofactory that produces natural fertilisers and pest control from fungi and bacteria, and doubles as a training centre for farmers from across Latin America. It has also embraced new technology, and the decision to do so was made the cooperative way. "Since we had a surplus in the cooperative's profits in 2023, the assembly voted to buy a drone," Krupinski explained. Using drones instead of tractors avoids crushing the rice plants. The cooperative now has five drones, shared among its production groups.
About 80% of Cootap's production goes to public programmes supplying school meals and basic food to low-income neighbourhoods, through Brazil's National Supply Company (Conab).
Growing further remains a challenge. Krupinski points to limited access to markets and logistics, a lack of research into seeds suited to agroecological farming, and public funding that still largely favours large-scale agribusiness. "We need more land, more technology, and seeds," he said.
His goal is clear: "Our mission is to bring healthy food to those who need it."
