Denise Cardoso, farmer and president of the family farmers' cooperative COOPERCUC in her office. The cooperative was cofounded by Denise's parents to better process and market the members' main produce: umbù. This plum-like fruit only grows in the semi-arid area of Brazil, where Denise and the other family farmers live and work, but its value for the food market had long been underestimated. Through the cooperative, processing and marketing efforts of the single farmers are joint allowing for stable incomes from umbù-agriculture. In 2015, IFAD cofinanced a new processing plant for the cooperative with the capacity to make new products like fruit based ice cream, further expanding the umbù-market and adding to the variety of processed, organic and fair trade umbù-food. In 2021, Denise was interviewed for IFAD's Rural Voices project and explained her views on rural development and the transformation of food systems, underlining the importance of tailored investments into cooperatives for more efficient production.
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