The agricultural cooperatives of Navarra inaugurated this Saturday at the Geltoki space in Pamplona the second edition of the TerritorioCOOP fair, an event designed to bring citizens and consumers closer to their agri-food offer and to make known the reality of the cooperative movement in agriculture and livestock in the Foral Community.
The meeting, led by the president of the Union of Agricultural Cooperatives of Navarra (UCAN), Esther Burgui, and the president of Caja Rural, Ignacio Terés, also included the presence of the counselor of Social Rights, Social Economy, and Employment, Carmen Maeztu, and the counselor of Rural Development and Environment of the Foral Government, José María Aierdi.
As the Navarrese Executive has pointed out, Aierdi defended during his speech "the need to strengthen the figure of agricultural cooperativism, so rooted in Navarra, as a key figure for the response that the Foral Community will offer in the definition of the European agricultural model of sustainable production that will be reflected in the new CAP period for 2028-2034 that the EU is currently negotiating".
For her part, counselor Maeztu highlighted the update of the Strategic Framework for the Integration of the Agricultural Cooperatives of Navarra, the MEICAN 2025-2027, signed last April: "From public administrations, we must be able to generate a framework that makes agri-food cooperatives companies with greater profitability and adaptability. Our commitment is and will always be the strengthening of the cooperative ecosystem, the improvement of job quality, and the promotion of equity".
"FAMILY FARMING AND RESPECT FOR THE LAND"
In his speech, Aierdi emphasized that "agricultural cooperativism and its capacity to generate life and employment in the rural environment become today a key tool for a model based on family farming, on respect for the land, or on cooperation from local realities against the global challenges of large multinational corporations of monocultures that dominate and sometimes pervert global markets".
During the presentation event, the president of UCAN, Esther Burgui, emphasized regarding this event that "TerritorioCOOP is an opportunity to bring agro-food cooperatives closer to citizens and show everything that is behind the food that reaches our tables" and highlighted that "cooperatives generate employment, keep our towns alive, and ensure that wealth remains in the territory."
The TerritorioCOOP fair of the Navarre agro-food cooperatives offers this Saturday at the old Geltoki bus station tastings and sales of cooperative origin products at around twenty exhibitors —mainly wine, dairy, and cereal—, along with a Food Truck of Reyno Gourmet products, children's proposals, rural sports exhibitions, and musical performances.