One day that poor villager met a learner of business management or otherwise say; an ASS
Team member of ACFA who had earlier been faced with a similar problem. Because he had experience
of how to address such situation, he counsel the village farmer by informing him that he is not the only person facing such problem. The ACFA team
counselor told the farmer that there are many other farmers in his village facing the same problem that he
does not know. He even made it known to him that even in the nearby village, there are others that their milk is wasting away
because no buyer want to buy less quantity of milk. And that if they all can
come together, they will be able to reason together and find a solution to their common problem. So that
henceforth, you all
can unitedly collect the surplus milk at a common place
and send somebody to the nearby town to sell it. After sale, you can sit together
and distribute the money according to your contribution of milk. Of course
first you have to deduct all the expenses from the sales proceeds.
Because that villager genuinely needed solution to his problem, he agreed to what the ACFA ASS Team member told him, and within a short period of time, he told other colleagues about
this new idea which led
to the bringing together of others of like-mind and form jointly own venture which subsequently helped
them to become milk producers in his village.
By collecting the milk
together in large quantity and selling the milk
in the nearby town they were all able to earn money. After that they did not
face any problem of finding a market for the surplus milk. This process
continued for a long time. One day some body suggested that instead of selling
only milk why not produce other milk products like ghee, butter, cheese, milk
powder etc. and sell them in the market at a better price? All of them agreed
and did the same. They produced quality milk products and found a very good
market for their products not only in the nearby town but in the entire
country. Just do a reviewing; A poor villager, who was not able to sell five litres of milk
in his village, is now selling milk and milk products throughout the nation. He
is now enjoying a good life.
How did it happen? Who made it possible? This is the reward of a
joint effort or a co-operative spirit.
The term co-operation is derived from the Latin word co-operari,
where the word co-operative therefore could means “working together”. So those
who want to work together with some common economic objective can form a
society which is termed as “co-operative society”. It is a voluntary
association of persons who work together to promote their economic interest. It
works on the principle of self-help as well as mutual help. The main objective
is to provide support to the members. Nobody joins a cooperative society to
earn profit. People come forward as a group, pool their individual resources,
utilize them in the best possible manner, and derive some common benefit out of
it.
In the above example, all producers of milk of a village joined
hands, collected the surplus milk at a common place and sold milk and milk
products in the market. This was possible because of their joint effort.
Individually it would not have been possible either to sell or produce any milk
product in that village. They had formed a co-operative society for this
purpose.
In a similar way, consumers in a particular locality can join hands to provide goods of their
daily need and thus, form a co-operative society. Now they can buy goods
directly from the producers and sell those to members at a cheaper price. Why
is the price cheaper? Because they buy goods directly from the producer and
thereby the middlemen’s profit is eliminated.
Do you think it would have been possible on the part of a single
consumer to buy goods directly from the producers? Of course, not. In the same
way people can form other types of co-operative societies as well. Let us know
about them.
