COOPERATIVISMO: UMA ALTERNATIVA VIÁVEL PARA A ELEVAÇÃO DA RENDA FAMILIAR NA MICRORREGIÃO DO CARIRI ORIENTAL PARAIBANO

Abstract

The present study describes the diverse socioeconomic aspects that contribute to family income increase of cooperative members at the Cooperativa Agropecuária do Cariri Coapecal. The idea of cooperative firstly appeared in the nineteenth century when the first cooperative was founded in Rochdale, Manchester, Britain in response to the Industrial Revolution advance that had introduced the steam machine to replace manpower available then. The method used in the research was a case study including a descriptive and bibliographic field survey. A population of 900 cooperative members were involved in the study, being 187 out of them used as a sample for the investigation. A questionnaire involving three aspects was used to collect the data in the survey. The first aspect containing 8 questions related to the socioeconomic profile of cooperative members; the second with 6 questions referred to property, being the third aspect with 9 questions about cattle raising. The whole questionnaire comprised of 23 closed questions aiming to estimate the increase rate in the family income of the people surveyed. Finally, after compiling and interpreting the variables of the research, the study showed there was, indeed, an increase in the family income of those members, and it confirmed that cooperativeness is an effective alternative to reach this goal. Thus, it is expected that cooperative managers ponder over this reality and that they be willing to meet their members´ requests.