With over 10,400,000 citizens connected to mobile phones (according to International
Communication Union) over 5,000,000 browsing internet daily and millions tuning
into more than 228 fm radio stations broadcasting in local languages – Do we still
need the kind of cooperatives that operated in 1970’s and 1980s to connect
farmers and small businesses to markets? Calls for revival of Cooperatives are
a hot and rehearsed issue, amongst, especially opposition politicians and
operatives. Possibly bending a bit to pressure, government rebranded the
Ministry to Trade Tourism and Industry to Ministry of Trade and Cooperatives!
Alas- this Cooperative narrative needs to be re-imagined in current Uganda. We
need to be talking about new ways of organizing and governing markets. If old
cooperatives don’t change, what is left of them will soon disappear.
You see, Ugandans started organizing themselves into co-operatives in
1913. Co-operatives operated informally until 1946 when the first co-operative
ordinance was enacted and this marked the birth of the co-operative department
and the present co-operative movement. By the end of 1946 there were 75
organizations of a cooperative nature. Fifty (50) of these were agriculture marketing
societies, 8 were shop keepers (supply) societies, 6 were
consumer stores and the remainder were miscellaneous societies such as fishermen (mainly for supply of
nets), cattle and dairy societies and one thrift society. The period 1946 to 1970
saw a significant growth of the co-operative movement especially in the cotton
and coffee sectors. In 1951, co-operatives handled 14,300 tons of cotton and
coffee. Following the acquisition of two coffee curing works and ten ginneries
in 1956, the total tonnage rose to 89,308 tons by 1960. In 1965, out of 437,923
bales of cotton produced in the country, co-operatives handled 267,420 bales
(61%) while they also handled 40% of the Robusta coffee. At the centre of this
progress, were producers/farmers and owners of small businesses themselves making
decisions.
Fast-forward- to 1970s, a new crop of elites captured co-operatives and greatly
mismanaged, interfered with, and alienated decision making from membership.
Annual General Meetings lost meaning and interests of largely farmers were relegated.
It is still the same story today. Look at the wars for supremacy and influence in
Bugisu, Banyankore Kweteran, Nyakatozi cooperatives etc- elites and politicians
are fighting to take charge and make quick gains – both material and political at
the expense of membership. Now old cooperatives are moribund and farmers don’t trust
them anymore. Dealing with old
cooperative mean increase in transaction costs that cut into profits of
farmers. Most farmers are quitting old cooperatives and seeking new ways of
organizing.
For example in
Kasenda sub- county, Kabalore district, small-scale farmers have institutionalised
informal collective marketing arrangements to increase their profits. When matooke
is ready for harvest in the field, farmers, with their mobile phones, call relatives
in Kampala and Fort Portal to check market prices. Trusted community informants
circulate the information, and survey households’ expected harvest. Then they
negotiate favourable large volumes and prices with buyers. The farmers bring
their matooke to collection centres on designated days, where community
representatives finalise negotiations and collect and distribute payments.
This informal way of connecting means farmers in Kasende don’t have to pay
bulking and marketing fees to the cooperative – they in the end get full market
prices. Cooperatives that want to survive must understand such new realities.
Politicians
and other leaders calling for revival, restoration etc of cooperatives must
pause and reflect. Such narratives are stale and outdated. We should support
old cooperatives if they are willing to re-invent themselves to new realities
or rather support emerging new ways of organizing. The Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) seems to get the point. They now define ‘co-operatives’ very broadly:
‘any member-owned enterprise run on democratic principles…which can take other
names and forms: producer organizations, self-help groups, unions and
federations of producers…and [even] Chambers of agriculture’. …and ‘contract
farming. Are Bugisu, Banyankole Kweterana, Nyakatozi etc in this new mode of
thinking?
My
fried Ethel Del Pozo Vergnes of International Institute for Environment and
Environment (IIED) argues that “understanding and improving the conditions
under which small-scale farmers make markets work for themselves,
whether in formal or informal organizations, is what lets them play their role
as economic actors…….It is time to understand where farmers really are rather
than where we want them to be” I agree with her. Let’s keep this debate leaping
skyward.
Morrison
Rwakakamba
Chief Executive Officer
Agency for Transformation (AfT)
Aft is
a think and do tank based in Uganda
