Can we build a co-operative economy?

By Ed Mayo, Secretary General, Co-operatives UK

In today’s economy, we hear a lot about competition and shares, but a lot less about co-operation and sharing. Can we build a co-operative economy?

In a fair economy, trade is between equals – each needs the other. Fairtrade is about reintroducing this kind of co-operation. It allows us to do more together - we shop, get what we need and the obstacles that face producers and their families drop. At least, that is the idea.

Perhaps not surprisingly, it was a co-operative in Mexico that launched the world’s first certified fair trade product. Coffee farmers in Oaxaca, Mexico were the producers in the co-operative UCIRI (Union de Comunidades Indígenas de la Región del Istmo), who launched the first-ever certified fair trade product. It was sold to consumers in the Netherlands under the label of Max Havelaar.

Inspired by this, around twenty years ago, a team of people in the UK, including myself (somewhat younger) started work on the idea of a wider mark, now the global FAIRTRADE Mark.

So what are co-ops? Co-operatives are member-owned businesses. They are run on democratic lines, on the basis of ‘one member, one vote’ rather than the investor-led model of ‘one share, one vote’.

It is a flexible model, but one that has enormous reach around the world. In Africa, one in thirteen people is a member of a co-operative - and it is worth adding, there are six times as many people who are co-owners of co-operative owners as there are people who have conventional shares.

The advantages of co-operating are that you can do things together that you can’t do alone.  The members may be farmers who have come together, they may be the workers in a business or the consumers, or a mix of these. Co-ops cover credit unions, housing co-ops and telecoms co-ops.

Co-operatives are a part of the Fairtrade success story. 75% of all Fairtrade now comes from small-holder co-operatives. Co-op shops here have typically been first to stock fairtrade. The Co-operative Group has pledged to ensure by next year that for all the primary commodities, not just tea, cocoa and bananas, if it can be Fairtrade, it will be.

But equally, Fairtrade at its best is part of a wider co-operative movement – one that operates here at home as well as abroad.  

In Scotland, in response to the power of the big supermarkets, three out of four farmers now belong to an agricultural co-operative. Farmers and rural communities benefit as a result. In the energy sector, where six big companies set the prices high and take the profits, Co-operative Energy has started in the last six months as a new national provider, offering a simple tariff, fair prices and share of any profits. It has fifteen thousand members, from a standing start.

In banking, you can watch out for a new campaign that is emerging that will call on UK consumers to move their money from the banks that caused the credit crunch to co-operative and mutual providers.

Given the way the economy is going, it is even more urgent than ever that we share economic activity in a co-operative way, to narrow the gap between rich and poor.

It is not that every penny needs to be spent with a co-operative. But for a fairer, global economy, we can at least ask every business we give our money to, to be more co-operative.


Ed Mayo works at Co-operatives UK – his blog can be found at www.edmayo.wordpress.com