The team of experts from Cooperativas Agro-alimentarias de España (CCAE) created for its participation in VISIONARY is multidisciplinary in scope. Led by the Sustainability, Quality and Innovation Department, it has the support of the Livestock Department with a contributor to the case study that CCAE will lead on “Sustainable milk production in dairy cooperatives”. Its Communication Department will be key to the promotion among its partners of the adoption of sustainable practices aimed at improving market access and added value.

On an EU level, CCAE is an active member of COGECA (whose current president is precisely member of the Board of CCAE), which represents around 40,000 farmers’ cooperatives from all over Europe. CCAE has also rich networking activities with several actors of the European food system (processing and retailing companies) that will increase the scope of the project’s outcomes and impact along the food value chain.

CCAE has a long track record of more than ten years of participating in European projects, both coordinating and actively participating as a partner in the consortia. CCAE’s experience in dealing with sustainability issues, through agri-food cooperatives and farmers themselves, will contribute to the success of the project, as well as to the dissemination of the project results to the end users, the people living in rural areas. Furthermore, CCAE will promote the link between the project and existing networks such as the EIP Agri.

CCAE is the organisation that represents the agri-food cooperative movement before national and European bodies, institutions and associations related to the agri-food sector and the social economy. This cooperative movement is made up of more than 3,600 cooperative enterprises, which have a global turnover of 38,428 M€, employ 123,700 workers and are made up of more than 1 million member farmers. In the performance of the VISIONARY tasks in which CCAE will participate, there is a high level of involvement in making visible the contribution of cooperatives to sustainability. This involvement is evident in the organisation’s guiding mission: “To promote, represent and support the Spanish agri-food cooperative movement, promoting a profitable, competitive, well-sized and professionalised business model and contributing to increasing the profitability of farmers and livestock farmers, as well as to the sustainable development of the Spanish agri-food sector and the rural environment”.