Towards a cooperative movement

Given the bitter experience with multi-level marketing (MLM) companies - many of which posed to be cooperatives, any such venture is likely to produce mistrust in the minds of people aware of the misdeeds. But this does not take away the merit of cooperatives in the least. It is not the fault of cooperatives as a concept but the fault lies with the practitioners of such cooperative ventures. At the inaugural function of the 43rd National Cooperatives Day, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has made an apt observation in reference to the growing income inequalities between urban centres and rural areas. Her suggestion that money circulation has to be augmented in villages through cooperatives merits serious attention.
True, villagers possess small property and have little fund for investment in any economic enterprise. Their strength, though, lies in their collective effort and pooling their small savings for investment. At times their collective fund may not be enough for starting a small and medium enterprise (SME). This is because SMEs have been given priority for credit-worthiness. Unfortunately, only a few deserving candidates have access to such loans. Usually the village touts and political elements enjoy the lion's share of such funds. This tradition has to be brought to an end and villagers gathered afresh under the aegis of what can be termed real cooperatives. That is a daunting task. Accomplishing it requires strong political will and hard actions. Mere words will only make noise but no sense.
Cooperative societies have otherwise produced wonderful results where the system's spirit and rules have been upheld without fail. During the military-backed rule in 2008, a few markets opened on the outskirts of the city on the basis of supply of vegetables from farmers through some sort of cooperative arrangement proved their worth. The farmers were then helped with trucks to market their produces directly to the destinations. This was beneficial for both the farmers involved and the consumers in Dhaka city, who could purchase such farm outputs fresh and at cheaper prices. Indeed, this is just one area where producers can gainfully cooperate with each other.
The artisan class and farmers in Bangladesh can combine in a strong force because the produces and the handicrafts or commodities of daily use enjoy a market in urban centres. When such commodities change hands several times courtesy of middlemen, they are not only adulterated, they are also priced much beyond any rational level. So the system of communication and marketing should as well be developed to suit the need of the producers and artisans.
A strong back-up role of the government is all the more necessary to take cooperative ventures forward in a win-win situation for all their stakeholders. As an illustration, it may be noted that producers cannot be owners of transports of their produces overnight. But a cooperative society in a village can be provided with, at least, one such vehicle with the facility for gradually paying its price in instalments.
This is certainly an area of consequence where cooperatives, with supportive public policy-related actions, can become the case of an area where it can be a conduit for promoting well-being of agri-produce growers and benefiting consumers at the end-users' level. This kind of proposition also sounds practical. Similar other producer-friendly moves will be required in order to make a cooperative movement successful.