History of the credit section

To get to know the history of Secció de Crèdit and its principles, essential to the development of Cooperativa Sant Isidre de les Borges Blanques, we must cast our memories back to the year 1917, only a year after the foundation of Sindicato de Santiago, when on February 9th the 3rd section holding the name of Caja Rural de Ahorros y Préstamos was created. Francesc Gelamí Dalmau, Francesc Jansà Olivart and Ramon Arqués Arrufat founded one of the most successful sections of the union, created, according to the founding act, to “estimulate and foster the members savings and facilitate the loans for agricultural purposes.

Ramon Arqués Arrufat, follower of the local Catalan Conservationism and ideologically close to la Lliga , teacher of the public schools in Les Borges Blanques knew how to pull together and build the spirit of improvement needed in the society of that time. Their main purpose was to facilitate the loans for the small and medium-sized farms, who, with desire and enthusiasm but no money to fulfil their dreams, could not upgrade their machinery.

Having said this, we do not exaggerate if we strongly affirm that Caja Rural was on the one hand one of the most important contributions of the Sindicato de Santiago in the society of Les Borges Blanques and Les Garrigues and on the other hand one of the key pillars of the social work of the agricultural cooperativism of the 20th century in Les Borges Blanques.
Remaining faithful to the cooperation soul which it was born with, La Caja Rural allowed the modernisation and transformation of countless agricultural properties. Francesc Gelambí Dalmau, Francisco Jansà Olivart, Joan Vallés Ollé, Josep Juncosa Minguella and Ramón Pelegrí Curcó acted as some of its presidents.

As an active and lively entity, it has adapted to the different periods and time and to the legislative changes that took place since the establishment of the democracy. In this sense, it must be emphasised that in 1983 Caja Rural, ceased to exist as such and it became the current so-called Secció de Crèdit.