Giuseppe di Stefano Paternó

Giuseppe di Stefano Paternó (Palma di Montechiaro, October 7, 1862 - Italy, after 1924) was an Italian politician and lawyer active in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul at the beginning of the 20th century, as the main proponent and organizer of the cooperative movement.

Biography Not much is known about his life before he arrived in Brazil. Son of Diego Paternó and Maria Meli, Giuseppe was hired by the state government of the Rio Grande do Sul to disseminate and structure the cooperative model among rural producers. At the end of the 19th century, an Italian newspaper described him as a subversive, who was responsible for a failed attempt to reform the productive system of the Modica region, and called him a "radical socialist lawyer, who worked with the also Sicilian Francesco Mormina Penna, a lawyer and scholar of Mazzini's thought. [...] The dominant classes found in the experiment, driven by Stefano Paternó, a dangerous organization, which contrasted with the dominant group". He promoted cooperativism in his home country and in Paraguay, where he also founded an Italian colony, constituting the Italo-American Colonizing Society and obtained fifty leagues from the Paraguayan government to settle. The initiative faced many difficulties due to poor access conditions and lack of infrastructure. In 1911, through the efforts of the state government, the Sociedade Nacional de Agricultura, the Center for Economic Development, and the Rio Grande do Sul Pastoral Society, Giuseppe began his activities in the state, where he would leave his main mark.

The Cooperative Movement The state authorities were interested in dynamizing and qualifying the wine industry, which had become the basis of the economy of the Italian-settled region. At the beginning of the 20th century, the southern product was already exported to São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, but faced two major problems. The first was the low quality of the product. The main source of Rio Grande do Sul wine was the Isabel grape, a rustic variety, undemanding and very adaptable, which thrived well in the region, but produced an acid wine. The acidity of the local soils aggravated the situation, and at a time when the producers were trying to consolidate their presence in the large markets in the center of the country, intermediaries adulterated the product received for sale with the addition of chemical substances and a lot of water, bringing the wine from Rio Grande do Sul into discredit. The second problem was the poor skills of the rural producer himself. The winemaking techniques brought from Italy by the immigrants were artisanal and homemade, leading to difficulties in maintaining a homogeneous standard among the many producers. In addition, hygiene was precarious, and vine growing techniques were still based more on tradition than science.

Paternó's participation Public reception to Giuseppe Paternó on his arrival in Caxias do Sul. Paternó was the agent chosen by the state government to organize the cooperative movement among Italian winegrowers. According to reports from the time, he was a man of great culture and brilliant orator, with a reputation as an "expert in setting up cooperatives". Launching of the cornerstone of Antônio Prado's first agricultural cooperative on October 21, 1911. Paternó is in the center. Sandra Pesavento mentions that Paternó is credited with the direct creation of sixteen cooperatives, "centralized in the settlers' savings, with the purpose of promoting the improvement of the colonial products, providing the small producers with credit, technology, and implements to improve production", and many others appeared based on his example. The proliferation of initiatives justified the organization of a federation, the União das Cooperativas Riograndenses de Responsabilidade, considered the first central credit cooperative in Brazil, founded in Porto Alegre in September 1912, with Álvaro Nunes Pereira as president, representing the Economic Center of Rio Grande do Sul, and Paternó as general director. However, the cooperatives' activity soon began to be seen as a threat to the monopoly that urban merchants held over the sale of grapes and wine, as well as to the independent producers, who were not contemplated by the facilities offered by the cooperatives and had not benefited from the exemption of territorial, industrial, and export taxes. In addition, the growth in production has lowered its selling value, reducing everyone's profits. A public polemic on the merits of cooperativism began. Paternó suffered defamation and personal attacks, his political positions and loyalties were questioned, and influential voices began a fierce campaign to dismantle the cooperatives, with the Associação dos Comerciantes as one of the main engines, claiming that the tax exemption was unfair, that the quality of the wines was not improving, and that there was inferior product left to be placed on the market. The producers began to feel insecure, and in 1913, a national crisis made it difficult to get loans. The state government did not transfer all the money promised, and the cooperatives became disorganized and started to lose money, leading the government to turn against its own creation. An unfavorable report by the intendant of Caxias, José Pena de Moraes, sent to the state government in 1913, precipitated the disintegration of the movement, and in November the federation of cooperatives was extinguished. As a result, the whole movement went into recess, and most of the equipment acquired for the associations was sold as scrap. Board of Directors of the Cooperativa Agrícola de Caxias. Paternó is second from right to left. In 1924, he sent a card from Italy to Abramo Eberle, and then his traces were lost. Paternó's legacy, however, remained as the perception of the necessity of modernization of the wine sector and the union of the producing class to overcome the difficulties common to all. In the words of Franco Cenni, "the positive effects of Paternó's audacity remained evident in new habits, beneath the agrarian conservatism, as one of the profound contributions of Italian thought in Rio Grande do Sul". For J. Monserrat, Paternó "was the author of one of the most important economic achievements of the decade", and for Sandro Rogério dos Santos, he was the dynamo of a movement that marked the regional economy and politics, being "a man ahead of his time. The lack of money, the high cost of living, high interest rates, and the economic situation made his achievements unsuccessful". In Picolotto's understanding, part of the system's failure can also be attributed to the settlers' lack of organizational capacity to implement the enterprises. Of all the cooperatives formed at the time, only the milk cooperative União Colonial Santa Clara de Garibaldi and the survived and showed a performance well above average.

The cooperativist banner, with the eagle perched on a bundle of sticks, would be revived by Paulo Monteiro de Barros in 1929, when the movement was rethought and rearticulated under new conditions. In Picolotto's words, the producers "were becoming aware of their condition of being exploited by traders and industrialists. The failed experiences of the past were seen as a learning process so that the movement would not make the same mistakes again. [...] The first cooperative founded in this new phase was Forqueta, in the district of the same name in Caxias do Sul, in 1929. This initiative was soon followed by the creation of others. During the 1930s, 25 new cooperatives were founded in the Serra Gaúcha alone".