Four years after its launch, the Ananas Dolcetto project is coming to an end with a positive balance: the objectives can be said to have been achieved (despite the difficulties imposed by the pandemic) and the seeds sown in the Togolese community that is the protagonist of the international cooperation project have not only germinated but continue to grow ever more luxuriant. This can be read in a press release which takes stock of the “Dolcetto Project”, promoted by Brio, a company specialized in the marketing of organic fruit and vegetables, in partnership with Coopermondo and Agrintesa as industrial and agronomic partner and Alce Nero for marketing. Co-financed by Aics–Italian Agency for Development Cooperation as part of the 2018 Profit Call, the project was launched with the aim of supporting, through the cooperative agriculture model, the development of the Tsévie community in Togo.
Togo is a country where 32.3% of the population lives below the poverty line and land cultivation employs 75% of the working population. “Pineapple Dolcetto” – reads the note – presented itself as a wide-ranging project, therefore, “aimed at helping thousands of small farmers to export a valuable product such as pineapple at profitable prices, guaranteeing producers a source of income certain and continuous and promoting a model, the cooperative one, which would favor the social and economic development” of the whole area.
“For the Aics-Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, the results achieved by the Ananas Dolcetto initiative represent, in a tangible way, what it means to do business ‘in and with’ the Italian Cooperation. – stated Giuseppe Liso, contact person for Aics-Italian Agency for Development Cooperation and Grazia Sgarra Director of Office VII – Subjects of cooperation, partnerships and finance for development -. They show how innovation, the transfer of knowledge and technologies, social and environmental sustainability and attention to product and process quality, associated with excellent results in terms of marketing and economic returns for the company and the community local, starting and focusing on local producers, with a bottom-up approach, are the keys to success of the ‘ISI’ business model promoted by Aics-Italian Agency for Development Cooperation. Innovativeness, sustainability, inclusiveness mark the success of ‘Ananas Dolcetto’ in Togo and of doing business in the partner countries of the Cooperation”.
Today, according to the promoters of the project, the objective has been achieved: “We arrived in Togo in 2018 with a very clear ethical project in mind – comment the president of Brio, Gianni Amidei, and that of Agrintesa, Aristide Castellari – that is to offer local communities the tools to grow and to present themselves on the markets more effectively. In these four years, in addition to many concrete and tangible results, we have transmitted a value to our partners in Togo: a value made up of agronomic and technological know-how, quality development and commercial support, also in the opening of new channels for a unique product that we have promoted in Italy. We wanted to support local communities in a process of enhancing true excellence: today Ananas Dolcetto is born from the work of organic and Fairtrade certified agricultural entrepreneurs gathered according to the same cooperative model that animates Agrintesa and Brio”.
Coopermondo, Confcooperative’s NGO, played a role of technical assistance, professional training and strengthening of cooperative governance. “The values of the cooperative model and the strength of aggregation have made it possible to increase both the economic and managerial potential of the agricultural producers in the area of intervention. The Tsevié community has benefited from it and the experience can be repeated using the know-how acquired by the locals. This is good cooperation for us”, is the comment of the president of Coopermondo, Marco Menni. [Da InfoAfrica]
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