2012: UN International Year of Co-operatives

By Barbara Crowther, Communications Director, Fairtrade Foundation

Last Thursday, 12 January marked the official launch of the UN 2012 International Year of Cooperatives, and the start of a vigorous debate about alternatives to business as usual.

Fairtrade’s roots also lie in the cooperative movement, and today a whopping 75% of all Fairtrade producer organisations are cooperatives of small scale farmers.

Cooperation has always been the backbone of the fair trade movement.  It was from cooperatives of small scale coffee farmers in Mexico that the appeal to NGOs and churches  in the North to establish the first Fairtrade label came, first known as Max Havelaar. That has led to a global producer-campaigner cooperation today through Fairtrade International spanning more than 80 countries in both North and South.

Today, cooperative business is no longer niche, but actually pretty big business. According to Cooperatives UK, globally cooperative business is worth around $1.1 trillion.

In 2010, according to Fairtrade International’s recently published Monitoring and Impact Report , Fairtrade certified small farmer organisations reported €447million worth of sales (that is, wholesale exports, not retail value) as well as €38.3m of additional Fairtrade premiums for investment in community and business development for the future.

So why does fair trade, including global Fairtrade standards and labelling, place so much importance on cooperation? Fundamentally, from its very beginning, there was a belief that if marginalised small scale farmers are going to stand any chance in tackling the injustices of global trade, then they needed to be organised. An individual farmer can only achieve so much working alone on his or her own plot. But by working with others, farmers can become real partners in member owned businesses driving new opportunities for improving farming practices, sharing resources, accessing market knowledge and moving up the value chain. 

This is not just about mercantilist trade as usual, but about ensuring additional benefits from trade are shared and invested for the benefit of all, and enabling trade to change the dynamic of local community and business development for those who need it most. Through cooperation, farmers can also innovate for the longer term, whether that is in installing cupping labs in order to move into speciality coffee, as Nicaraguan farmers have done, or going beyond their original crop, such as buying a small factory to process a range of local fruit juices and jam products, as Caribbean banana farmers have done.

Just this week, we heard news from one group of Indian cotton farmers are now recycling waste from cotton processing into paper, and launching a whole new business stream. 

Cooperation in the Fairtrade movement has also gone further in some cases, where farming cooperatives have partnered with each other and with partners to launch farmer-owned products.

The most outstanding example is that of the 60,000 strong cocoa farmers organisation Kuapa Kokoo, a 45% share owner in Divine Chocolate, itself a 100% Fairtrade chocolate brand.

Meanwhile, nut growers from Bolivia, Nicaragua, Malawi and India have collaborated to form an international nut coop, and now owns Liberation Nuts, supplying many UK retailers and the iconic Harry’s Nuts brand, cooperating again with UK comedian Harry Hill.

Meanwhile the 100% Fair Trade Organisation Equal Exchange, producing a range of organic Fairtrade products, is itself a cooperative business, and we could not forget the role that The Cooperative Group and Cooperative Movement in the UK has played in building Fairtrade awareness and pioneering many Fairtrade product launches over the years.

In this Year of the Cooperatives, Fairtrade fundamentally as cooperation – even a conspiracy of cooperation – between farmers and consumer-citizens to make business work better for sustainable development.

Visit the official UN International Year of Cooperatives (IYC) 2012 website 
Find out more about Cooperatives in the UK.