In a country of small and marginal farmers only aggregate model would work. And nothing offers a better model than that of cooperative if we have to achieve economy of some scale in the field. These were words of Dr Dinesh, Chief Executive of National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI) on Wednesday in a national round table conference on agriculture. The function was presided over by the renowned scientist MS Swaminathan.
About 64 participants belonging to government, cooperative, academics, fertilizer, and private sectors took part in this brainstorming session organized by Agriculture Today.
Enumerating the challenges confronting our agriculture produce the NCUI Chief Executive advocated the adoption of the cooperative model as the panacea for all ills. “It is about 100 years old and well-tested. Strengthening primary cooperatives at village level and exempting them from income tax net would go a long way in solving our problems . We should never forget that the cooperative model does not aim at profit and hence should be treated a little differently”, Dr Dinesh said.
He also expounded the role of the government vis- a -vis cooperatives. The government should help rather than create hurdles. It should expedite the adoption of the 97th Constitutional amendment, carrying out amendments in the MSCS Act 2002 sooner than later and revisiting the state cooperative acts to make them synch with the times, Dr Dinesh said
Before winding up he did not forget to emphasize the importance of professionalization of cooperatives and demanded emphasis on education and training of the people associated with cooperatives. NCUI must get all support financial and others to achieve this aim, he added.
Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen supported Dr Dinesh’s idea of adopting cooperative as the main plank of development of agriculture. M J Khan ,editor of Agriculture Today recounted stories of cooperatives from France and attributed their success to professionalization of the skill.
Agricultural Commissioner J S Sandhu, Sanjiv Chopra and others represented government in the conference. The 3 hour long conference had several heavy-weight speakers from diverse fields.
Dr. Dinesh raising the issue with vivid vision to strengthen cooperative movement is highly appreciable.Let all the cooperators should come out to support and raise such issue for the promotion and development of cooperative movement.at their own levels so that voice of advocating these issue may lead to bow the Govt. in implementation of their policies.
Cooperative model of business had been quite successful in dairy sector and the sugar mills sector; and this model has not succeeded in coop.farming, Lift irrigation coops. So the ultimate criteria to decide whether we must have the ‘coop. model of business’ depends on ‘felt need’ for the model from the prospective beneficiaries. The felt need for consumer coops and housing coops is almost extinct now because of more attractive alternatives are available in the market. The coop model of long term agricultural credit dispensing mechanism has died in many States. The 3 tier business model of coops adds to the cost and inefficiencies in the delivery of goods and services, making them unattractive compared with the private sector.
The question that we must contemplate is– are we trying to superimpose an old framework on an economy which does not need it any longer?