No co-ops without trust
In order to operate for the benefit of its user members, a co-op’s activities must be seen to be based on fairness, equity, democracy and mutual support.
These are the values needed when members pool their resources together, in order to increase their purchasing power, and boost their marketing efforts. But the dairy groups which have made Ireland a famous location for co-operation may have lost touch with some of the farmers meant to benefit from them.
IFA National Dairy Committee Chairman Michael Murphy recently warned co-ops not to grab the dairy premium in the same way as the meat factories pocketed the slaughter premium.
One can only conclude he was reflecting the feelings of his members, and that some of them feel alienated from the co-ops designed to achieve a better bargaining position for them in the ultra-competitive food and farming industry.
His remark would never have been made if Irish dairy co-ops were doing well and able to pay a high milk price to their farmer members. Instead, as Mr Murphy made clear, the dairy farmers he represents cannot endure any further milk price reduction.
In that light, his statement is understandable; nevertheless, it reveals a rift between some farmers and their co-ops.
If co-ops were the big, happy families they are meant to be, everyone could talk openly, without the “hands off our dairy premium” kind of public warnings made by Mr Murphy.
He made the point that co-ops must reduce their cost structure, by co-operating in milk collection, processing and marketing, and invest together to develop higher value outlets for farmers’ milk, and extract greater returns from the market place to pay viable milk prices.
That’s a tall order for organisations which do not seem to get on with their own members (at least not with those who form policy within IFA), not to mind entering huge business agreements with other co-ops.
First, a lot of fences need to be mended within co-ops, before they can fulfil their missions of increasing farmers’ purchasing power, and boosting their marketing efforts.
That is the least that is needed to keep farmers hanging on in there, in a food industry where retailers have achieved a stranglehold.
If farmers need encouragement to get their act together, they need only look at the recently published world’s richest people lists. Thanks in part to cheap food bought from farmers with no bargaining power, shopkeepers have six representatives in the top ten. The poorest of them is worth $20 billion, and they are getting richer while farmers fight over the pennies.
