Mondragon

Mondragon is a federation of industrial cooperative associations with over 260 companies subsidiaries in thirty-five countries, founded in 1959 in Spain’s Basque Region. Today it employs seventy-five thousand workers producing revenues of approximately $14 billion. Membership of the cooperative gives employees equal rights to vote and ownership; management boards consist of employees from all levels of the organization; the highest managers earn no more than six times the salary of the lowest paid workers; no more than 20 per cent of workers can be temporary contractors; and the general assembly of worker-owners decides how to distribute 70 per cent of profits after tax. An illustration of the effect of the structure came with the collapse of the white-goods manufacturer and one of Mondragon’s largest cooperatives, Fagor. With 1,800 jobs at risk, Mondragon invested in cross-training employees to take on different roles at other cooperatives, transferred capital from stable to vulnerable cooperatives and placed 1,500 people in other cooperatives in the group.

Genetic Characterization of the Local Pirenaica Cattle for Parentage and Traceability Purposes

Pirenaica is the most important autochthonous cattle breed within the Protected Geographic Indication (PGI) beef quality label in the Basque region, in northern Spain. The short tandem repeats (STRs) are powerful markers to elucidate forensic cases and traceability across the agri-food sector. The main objective of the present work was to study the phylogenetic relationships of Pirenaica cattle and other breeds typically raised in the region and provide the minimum number of STR markers for parentage and traceability purposes. The 30-STR panel recommended by the International Society of Animal Genetics-Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (ISAG-FAO) was compared against other commercial STR panels. The 30-STR panel showed a combined matching probability of 1.89 × 10−25 and a power of exclusion for duos of 0.99998. However, commercial STR panels showed a limited efficiency for a reliable parentage analysis in Pirenaica, and at least a 21-STR panel is needed to reach a power of exclusion of 0.9999. Machine-learning analysis also demonstrated a 95% accuracy in assignments selecting the markers with the highest FST in Pirenaica individuals. Overall, the present study shows the genetic characterization of Pirenaica and its phylogeny compared with other breeds typically raised in the Basque region. Finally, a 21-STR panel with the highest FST markers is proposed for a confident parentage analysis and high traceability.