CAUCUS OF CO-OPERATIVE ENTERPRISES

Mr. Bruce Thordarson, Director-General of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA)

In almost all countries around the world, co-operative enterprises owned by their members play an extremely important role in providing agricultural, financial and other services to more than 760 million individual people, making co-operatives actually the largest socio-economic grouping in the world. However, since Co-operative members tend to be rather practical, results-oriented people I am sure they would not want me to impose unduly upon your patience this evening or indeed upon the patience of the hardworking Secretariat. With your permission, therefore, I would prefer simply to table the statement, which we prepared in the rainbow colours of the Co-operative movement, which indicates the commitment which Co-operatives worldwide have to working with family farmers and with other efficient economic actors in the private sector in order to help attain the objectives of the Food Summit.

I am making this statement as a representative of the International Co-operative Alliance's International Co-operative Agricultural Organization on behalf of over 200 national and international co-operative enterprises in 90 countries.

Co-operatives are a special type of business enterprise which are both economic and social in character. They are autonomous associations of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs through a jointly-owned democratically controlled enterprise. Co-operatives are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity.

The co-operative form of enterprise has been chosen by over 760 million individuals worldwide including farmers who organize themselves to maximize the benefits of production, processing and marketing, and to benefit consumers and workers who ensure food availability and distribution. However, the most significant contribution of co-operative enterprises is their ability to provide employment and therefore income to allow people to produce and purchase food. The United Nations has quantified this significant contribution of the co-operative movement and estimated that "that the livelihoods of three billion people - half of the world's population are to a significant extent made secure by co-operative enterprises."

Agricultural co-operatives, which bring together over 400 million individuals, are particularly important to ensuring food security. They contribute to national self-reliance with co-operatives in many countries responsible for over 50 percent of domestic agricultural production and marketing. In countries of the OECD, cooperatives not only provide for the domestic market but are also active as food exporters.

In order to ensure food security both production and distribution of food will need to improve. Much of the responsibility for increasing agricultural production to meet the needs of increasing populations will fall upon farmers and their organizations including co-operatives. Agricultural co-operatives already constitute an important force within the agricultural sector with production estimated at US$ 522 billion.

However, they will be increasingly called upon to provide increased yields while respecting the natural environment and consumer food safety. Co-operatives are ready to meet that challenge and work in partnership with Government and other organizations. We should remember that farmers, and in particular family farmers, feed more people with higher quality food than ever before while conserving the natural resource base of rural areas. Between 1969 and 1994, the world's population grew by 1.7 billion - an increase which is approximately equal to the total world population in 1900. During the same period, the number of malnourished persons declined from 950 million to 800 million. Farmers have long proven that given the right incentives and access to research facilities and services, they can meet the challenges of the future.

We must stress however, that food security will only be possible if poverty is addressed alongside increases in food production and better distribution systems. As the United Nations Secretary-General states in his report on cooperatives (A/51/267):

"A significant proportion of the world's poor continue to be small-scale, resource-poor farmers and other rural entrepreneurs in developing countries. In the absence of improvement in their productivity and the provision of opportunities for marketing with fair returns, their condition is unlikely to improve, and problems of disintegration will not disappear, while food security will be even further from achievement. Only by means of a people-centred, participatory approach will effective transformation of the rural sector occur; co-operative enterprise is one of the most efficient organizational vehicles for such transformation in developing regions - as it has been in the past when similar conditions existed in the rural economies of the developed countries. Individuals and communities also empower themselves to escape from or to avoid poverty by setting up cooperatively organized enterprises."

We encourage governments to form partnerships with the co-operative movements in their countries and reiterate the commitment of the international co-operative movement and the International Co-operative Alliance to work towards the eradication of food insecurity.

Finally, we, as representatives of the co-operative movement, recommend that the vital roles of family farms and farmer-owned agricultural co-operatives for global food security be reflected in the implementation of the Rome Declaration and Plan of Action of the World Food Summit.