Cooperatives as Business Models of the Future

[Dan Clore]

News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo

http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/11/cooperatives-as-business-models-of-the-future/
Cooperatives as Business Models of the Future
By Thalif Deen
Three members of the Verapaz egg farm cooperative in El Salvador, with
one of their daughters. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Three members of the Verapaz egg farm cooperative in El Salvador, with
one of their daughters. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 26 2012 (IPS) - When the International Year of
Cooperatives (IYC) concluded last week, some of the overwhelming success
stories highlighted at a two-day interactive session came both from
developing and developed countries, including India, Brazil, China,
Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Italy, France and the United States.

As Dame Pauline Green, president of the International Cooperative
Alliance, pointed out, two of the largest domestic agricultural food
businesses in India – the Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative (IFFCO)
and the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (widely known as
Amul) – are both highly successful cooperative business models.

Amul, which is owned by over three million small dairy farmers, mostly
women, has helped elevate India as the world’s largest milk producer.

And last month, IFFCO partnered with Coop Federee, a major agricultural
cooperative in Canada, to invest in a hefty 1.3-billion-dollar joint
transnational cooperative venture for a fertiliser plant in Quebec.

In Brazil, Green said, a clearly defined government policy aimed at
helping rural people, through cooperative businesses, has seen a massive
reduction in poverty in the rural areas of the sprawling South American
nation.

In Kenya, cooperatives account for nearly half of the country’s gross
domestic product (GDP), while in Rwanda the cooperative economy has gone
from zero to eight percent of GDP over the last 10 years.

“The cooperative model of business could be a valuable tool in building
sustainable, grassroots agricultural businesses in Africa,” she added.

In Italy, she pointed out, about 90 percent of the production of
parmesan cheese comes from cooperatives, while nearly all of the
champagne produced in France is the result of cooperatives.
A Roadmap for the Future

Asked what next for post-IYC, Felice Llamas, focal point on cooperatives
at the U.N.'s department of social policy and development, told IPS that
U.N.-related action on cooperatives will be guided by the proposed
International Plan of Action for 2012 and Beyond.

Into the short and intermediate terms, this plan will serve as a
preliminary roadmap for coordinated activities and policies concerning
cooperatives.

"This instrument is crucial as it will maintain the momentum of IYC by
sustaining collaboration among the full spectrum of stakeholders - from
member states and cooperatives, to academia and civil society
organisation," she said.

Over the longer term, she said, the U.N. anticipates that cooperatives
will continue to grow, not only in terms of business and public
visibility, but in regards to policymaking.

Asked if cooperatives will find a place in the U.N.'s post-2015 economic
agenda, Llamas told IPS that cooperatives are viewed as crucial
participants in any economic development agenda, and "we will work to
have cooperatives included in the UN's post-2015 plans."

To this end, the proposed Plan of Action will seek to align cooperative
objectives and action on this front with those of the U.N. and its
specialised agencies.

"Now that cooperatives are widely recognised as crucial to people
empowerment, employment generation and social protection, they will have
an increasingly significant role to play in the future," she added.

It is foreseen that in addition to the U.N.'s Department of Economic and
Social Affairs, specialised agencies such as FAO, the International
Labour Organisation (ILO) and the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP),
among others, will continue to guide and coordinate action on
cooperatives within the context of their specific fields.

Currently, youth unemployment and food security are major priorities, so
the U.N. agencies will provide the necessary support so that
cooperatives can effectively direct efforts to address these issues.

And in the United States, Ocean Spray, described as one of the world’s
largest cranberry producers, registered a 20-percent increase in sales
last year.

The world’s largest 300 cooperatives, primarily in the insurance and
food and agriculture sectors, generated revenues of 1.6 trillion dollars
and employed nearly 100 million people worldwide.

Asked if the cooperative model of enterprise may well be one of the
answers to the global economic crisis, Green told IPS, “Without doubt
the cooperative business model offers a proven solution to this global
economic crisis we are mired in.”

She pointed out the important role cooperatives have played in building
economic prosperity in Brazil, Russia, India and China (known, along
with South Africa, as the emerging new coalition BRICS).

But in troubled regions like the Eurozone, cooperatives have also
demonstrated that generally they are more resilient to the downturn than
non-cooperative businesses, while cooperative banks are actually
protecting against market failure.

“Moreover, we are seeing cooperatives choosing to release surplus
capital rather than sack people in difficult markets like Spain,” Green
said.

In Spain, the Mondragon workers cooperative has seen its members vote
for two years running now to take pay cuts rather than lose people.

“It’s a recognition of the value of human capital in business. All of
this in fact means that cooperatives are sustainable businesses and
supporting and promoting them will help ensure we can climb out – and
stay out of the financial crisis in which so much of the world once
again finds itself,” Green said.

In a statement released here, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said
there continues to be a hunger for policies and approaches that address
social and economic goals that go beyond a one-dimensional bottom line.

As a strong partner in development, Ban said, the cooperative movement
works with the United Nations every day to empower people, enhance human
dignity and help achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which
include the reduction of extreme poverty and hunger by 50 percent by 2015.

The theme of 2012 World Food Day, commemorated on Oct. 16, was
“Agricultural Cooperatives – key to feeding the world.”

According to U.N. figures, the number of hungry people worldwide has
been estimated at nearly 870 million.

Jose Graziano da Silva, director general of the Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO), said “cooperatives hold a key to feeding the world,
but so do governments, civil society and private sector (in order) to
achieve food security for all. We all need to work together.”

In its declaration presented to the United Nations, the 2012
International Summit of Cooperatives, held in Quebec City, Canada last
month, reinforced “the amazing power or cooperatives”.

Pointing out that the cooperative sector is pervasive, Green told IPS
that far from just being restricted to agriculture and farming,
cooperatives touch every part of business.

Insurance, banking, health, housing, retail and education are all
sectors which have strong cooperative components.

In the UK, she said, schools have become one of the fastest-growing
parts of the cooperative economy.

“Renewable energy cooperatives have been springing up all over the
globe, and of course media is another area which benefits from the
cooperative model because it ensures independent journalism remains
viable,” she noted.

In the northern part of Italy, social cooperatives are a significant
feature of the regional economy where people with a disability, whom
would otherwise be reliant on the state for support, or be part of the
long-term unemployed, are starting and successfully running their own
cooperatives.

Asked about the future, Green said: “We will of course be working
closely with the UN to ensure that cooperatives are a key piece of its
proposed 2015 economic agenda, but every indication from this meeting
has been that cooperatives are ready and willing to enhance their
engagement, and that the U.N. not only wants but needs us too.”


--
Dan Clore

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"From the point of view of the defense of our society,
there only exists one danger -- that workers succeed in
speaking to each other about their condition and their
aspirations _without intermediaries_."
--Censor (Gianfranco Sanguinetti), _The Real Report on
the Last Chance to Save Capitalism in Italy_

[Jos Boersema]

On 2012-11-27, Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
> News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
>
> http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/11/cooperatives-as-business-models-of-the-future/
> Cooperatives as Business Models of the Future
> By Thalif Deen
> Three members of the Verapaz egg farm cooperative in El Salvador, with
> one of their daughters. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS
>
> Three members of the Verapaz egg farm cooperative in El Salvador, with
> one of their daughters. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS
>
> UNITED NATIONS, Nov 26 2012 (IPS) - When the International Year of
> Cooperatives (IYC) concluded last week, some of the overwhelming success
> stories highlighted at a two-day interactive session came both from
> developing and developed countries, including India, Brazil, China,
> Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Italy, France and the United States.

[...]

Funny how all that U.N. blabla always goes past real people, who might
be so deeply interested in this idea that they even write books about
it, Constitutions even. Sad also are the anarchists, who despite their
blabla never resolve to understand that all starts with LAW. Without
that - without law - nothing means anything serious. This is why they
love the anarchists and the Communists so much, that we still hear about
them. It is their lawlessness with means they are a toothless enemy
against the ruling gangs.

When reality is coming to meet humanity and all the crap is falling
away like so much useless chaff, we'll see what keeps going.
--
http://www.law4.org