Cooperativism is a very old practice around the world. In Brazil, the first official record dates back to 1889, in Minas Gerais. According to data from the Organization of Brazilian Cooperatives (OCB), there are currently 5.314 active cooperatives in the country, which together in 2019 generated a turnover of R$494 billion. In the agricultural sector it is no different, they total 1.223, totaling 992.111 members and 207.201 employees.
With such importance, cooperatives have consolidated themselves as fundamental cogs for the national economy, and therefore, they need to be very efficient. This efficiency goes through management, which today is still the bottleneck for many organizations. According to Wellington Sena, agronomist and solutions architect, the biggest difficulty for cooperatives when it comes to managing their members' information is access to this data.
This is because it is very complicated for these organizations to have any type of information about what happens within the property without a tool that helps them in this process. “Today, the data that the cooperative has is often limited to what happens at the counter within its sales units. Some of them still have periodic visits from technicians to the property who carry out a sample survey, but this may not be enough to make a decision or carry out a more in-depth analysis”, says the professional.
To make this information more accurate and secure, it is recommended that cooperatives professionalize their management. Among the efficient solutions available on the market today, GAtec stands out, specialized in agro-industrial management, which offers solutions that help these organizations in agricultural management both in their own areas and in the areas of cooperative members. “It is increasingly important that cooperatives have data on productivity, production costs, input consumption history, among others, and that this data is available on a platform that is easy to access for both the cooperative and the member,” he says. Seine.
GAtec's SimpleFarm platform was created with the purpose of providing agribusiness users with the most advanced management technology, but on the other hand, it takes into account the particularities that agribusiness itself provides such as infrastructure, connectivity and even producers' relationship with new technologies. Therefore, the main function of this software is to overcome the barrier that exists so that data from activities that occur on the farm can reach a clear, simple and secure way in an “information center”. “GAtec supports loyalty and good practices as a whole, which is why our platform was developed to meet the demand and needs of cooperatives, bringing a new vision to the cooperative member, adding to their process”, says Roberto Rodrigues, director company commercial.
In practice, the solution offered by GAtec allows cooperatives to have complete control over all information in the production chain. Thus, in a joint activity that involves the organization and its members, information is entered into the system in real time and is processed so that it is available to all parties involved.
Furthermore, the tool has mobile devices and resources that enable the capture of data on properties, sending this data in real time to a center, which stores, organizes and transforms it into information in the form of indicators for decision making. Data capture can be done by the member himself or by a cooperative technician, automated or not.
In the GAtec business model, cooperatives can either be a direct customer, where they acquire the tool and subsidize their members, or they mediate the company's contact with them. “This relationship is undoubtedly a two-way street between the member and the cooperative, where GAtec contributes to management by providing its tools and services, providing improvements in the process and planning for the cooperative and its members”, concludes the agricultural engineer.
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