Agricultural Cooperatives: An Alternative

Since early man cooperated with others to help kill large animals for survival, people have been cooperating to achieve objectives that they could not reach if they acted individually. Cooperation has occurred throughout the world.

cc. The cooperative as a modern business structure originated in 19th century Britain. The Industrial Revolution had a profound effect on the way business was organized and on the working conditions and economic situations of many people. In response to the depressed economic conditions brought forth by industrialization, some people began to form cooperative businesses to meet their needs. Among them was a group of 28 workers who were dissatisfied with the merchants in their community. They formed a consumer cooperative known as the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in 1844. They began by opening a cooperative store that sold items such as flour and sugar to members, and the Society quickly grew to include other enterprises. The founders also established a unique combination of written policies that governed the affairs of the cooperative. Among these rules were: democratic control of members, payment of limited interest on capital, and net margins distributed to members according to level of patronage. Based on its success, the Rochdale set of policies soon became a model for other cooperative endeavours, and became known as the general principles that make a cooperative unique from other business structures.

Agricultural Cooperatives

Agricultural cooperatives are typically classified according to the three major functions they perform: marketing, supply, and service. Many cooperatives combine all three types of functions in their operations.

Marketing cooperatives

Marketing cooperatives help to sell their members' farm products and maximize the return that they receive for these goods. Some marketing cooperatives perform a limited number of functions, while others vertically integrate their operations so that they perform more functions that add value to their members' products as they move from the farm to the consumer. Some cooperatives even sell products in grocery stores under their own brand name. Marketing cooperatives can serve their members in many ways, including bargaining for better prices, storing and selling members' grain, and processing farm products into more consumer-ready goods.

Supply cooperatives

Supply cooperatives (sometimes referred to as purchasing cooperatives) sell farm supplies to their members. Products include production supplies such as seed, fertilizer, petroleum, chemicals, and farm equipment.

Service cooperatives

Service cooperatives provide various services to their members. For instance, cooperatives may offer services such as pesticide applications, seed cleaning, and artificial insemination. Service cooperatives also include organizations such as the Farm Credit System, a network of borrower-owned lending institutions that provide credit and other financial services to farmers, and rural electric cooperatives, which provide electricity to rural areas.

Today, the cooperative as a business form still provides the ideal framework for farmers and concerned citizens alike to set up a structure that enables them to commit themselves to the development and protection of the areas and communities they live in. Farmers organised and cooperating with one another would be encouraged to produce to the needs of the local community, and that produce would be slaughtered in associated abattoirs to be sold at fair prices by the farmers themselves.

Quality has its price and here the consumers have an important role to play. By taking an active interest in the products that land on their tables, they would be guaranteeing that what they are consuming is healthy, and that it would be helping to sustain the area in which they live. Such citizens could not be easily manipulated into trusting measures which have been ordered upon them by politicians in Brussels and/or which run contrary to their own interests.