Ensuring food safety and providing stable access to affordable nutrition. That was the mission when Intercoop Europe was founded in 1990 and it continues to be our mission today.
Intercoop Europe is an independent professional organization based in Switzerland. It represents 16 of the largest agricultural cooperatives in Europe. All members are majority-owned by farmers. Their cooperative purpose is to supply farms with the necessary means of production and to support them in bringing their goods to market.
With their activities in the agricultural, retail and energy sectors, our members also act as a link between farmers and consumers, meeting basic needs of society and occupying a supply-relevant position.
The history
The history of Intercoop dates to 1929, but the organisation as we know it today saw the light of day in 1990, when the ‘International Agricultural Society INTERCOOP’ and the CEA division (division for co-operative economic activities of the European Confederation of Agriculture) merged.
“It is our firm belief that to be able to produce the food required in the future, we must take better care of the environment and transform agricultural production.”
Moving towards a sustainable future
The UN expects 10 billion people to live on earth in 2050. A growing population also means an increasing demand for nutrition. Today, Europe is one of the world’s leading producers of healthy, safe and high-quality food. But the intensive production of recent decades has left its mark and climate change confronts us with major challenges. It is our firm belief that to be able to produce the food required in the future, we must take better care of the environment and transform agricultural production.
Our goal is an environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable agricultural sector. We want to feed the growing number of people by producing more with less: To do that we want to boost the agricultural production while reducing negative impacts on the environment, conserving resources, and enhancing natural capital. To make this change happen, farmers need a framework that enables them to be economically viable.
We pursue the following objectives in particular
- We are dedicated to make crop production both highly productive and environmentally sustainable. We want to preserve fertile soils, biodiversity, and clean drinking water.
- We support productive livestock farming, which is adapted to customers’ needs, respecting animal welfare, and promoting closed cycles of nutrients and by-products of the food industry.
- Reducing CO2 emissions is one of the keys to a sustainable future. We want to contribute to this by reducing energy consumption, promoting renewable energies, and supplying the fuels of the future. Thanks to our decentralised distribution structures, we ensure that sustainable mobility is also available in rural areas.
To achieve our ambitious goals, we are cooperating with partners in science, business and politics. We promote innovation and pioneering approaches, combining agronomic knowledge with new technologies and the benefits of digitalisation. In doing so, we always consider the entire value chain and act in an integrated manner – from farm to fork.
The board of Intercoop Europe
Kristian Hundebøll
CEO of DLG
Denmark
Dick Hordjik
CEO of Agrifirm
The Netherlands
Lukas Rosshart
CEO of ZG Raiffeisen
Germany