Resumen de La sustentabilidad del sector cooperativo en la economía agro-alimentar en la Región de Algarve

Alcides R. Fretes Fariña, António Covas, María Teresa Noronha

• The cooperatives agro-food in the region of Algarve, to the South of Portugal, always been stigmatized it is asinefficient organizations, although in the literature there are positions were found for and against this notion. Thetruth is that cooperatives survive as organizations able to self-generate resilient.They certainly exist in cooperatives certain practical institutional that somehow can limit the possibility of economicgrowth, and the cry of many is force changes in some points of the cooperative principles, to transform them intomore efficient organizations to compete in markets increasingly greater complexity and requirements Some the limitations of the Algarvian cooperatives, it is precisely its atomization and their lack of size is saya lack of concentration in the food chain. The concentration, the kind of leadership, the structure of capital andproductivity, are essential factors for innovation, but on the other hand the potential of values and cooperativeprinciples are immense.This research seeks to elements of analysis between the factors of events from the slightly more liberal perspectiveof competitiveness and the traditional values from the viewpoint of the coopetitividad. For Otherwise the need for anew social accounting that can be measured with clarity to cooperatives mostly in its strengths, as organizations thatcombine values and principles ethical and democratic, cooperative forms of social performance efficiency, the socialreturn on an investment such as environmental and social values held by cooperatives.