In recent years, since the Oslo Agreements, Israelis and Palestinians, from both governmental institutions and NGOs, have cooperated within the framework of MASHAV on issues of development such as agriculture, cooperative development and health. Over a four-week period in August 2000, four different groups of 30 farmers from the Palestinian Authority participated each week in an intensive course on cooperative development in rural areas for farmers at the Peoples International Institute - Histadrut. Our Shalom Magazine reporter was there, learned about the subject and spoke to some of the participants.
The cooperative is one of the most widespread forms of organization in the world today, particularly in developing countries. But in most parts of the world, the cooperative is viewed as an organization whose time has passed, an organization that has been attempted everywhere, but that has resulted only in failure and disappointment. The International Institute - Histadrut has developed a unique and innovative approach to cooperatives and cooperative management.
The International Institute's Academic Director, Zvi Galor, explains that cooperatives are not a goal but a tool in achieving a goal. The cooperative is probably one of the only means by which poor individuals can escape poverty and go on to develop themselves, their families and their countries. People choose this type of organization when they realize that alone they cannot achieve their goals and they become ready to give up a part of their independence and - most importantly - to cooperate with others who have the same needs. People have to become convinced that this approach is less risky than the alternative.
The most important goal of people who have gained this insight is to obtain the best and most economical service that they can from the cooperative they have established. For example, in a consumers' cooperative, members seek to buy the best quality goods for their families and homes at the lowest possible prices. In a producers' cooperative they seek the highest possible valuation of their own work and the goods they produce themselves.
Two principles form the basis of a cooperative: 1) Each member is the owner of his own equal share in the cooperative's total assets and the total assets of the members are equivalent to the total assets of the cooperative. 2) The cooperative's operating expenses are divided among the members. Members pay according to their utilization of services. If a particular member utilizes more services, he pays more. The cooperative is funded by its members to serve them in the best possible way and at the lowest possible cost.
At the Institute participants learn about the Essential Triangle of Agricultural Production, where obtaining credit to buy inputs (seed, machinery, land, etc.) to grow the agricultural produce which must be marketed may all be achieved within a cooperative framework, thereby giving the farmer a higher return for his work. What is innovative about the Israeli approach is that the three elements - credit, inputs, marketing - all belong to the producer. This is in contrast to other places in the world where, for instance, credit may be available to small farmers from the central bank, but marketing is still in the hands of the middleman, making it impossible for the farmer to repay his debts.
Shalom asked several participants what insights they had obtained.
Husam al Hudhud from Nablus
This course, given in the Arabic language by Israeli and Israeli-Arab lecturers, is about the establishment and management of agricultural cooperatives. The participants came to the International Institute to learn about cooperative methods based on the essential triangle of agricultural production: credit, inputs, marketing.
Upon completion of this intense month I hope that all 120 farmers, who came from some 46 agricultural sites representing all kinds of agriculture in our area, will indeed be able to apply what they learned. We expect this course will have a positive impact on the farmers' lives and their interaction in terms of their understanding how to organize together through cooperatives that will benefit them materially in an equitable way. I really think that for a majority of us our their thinking has actually changed. Now we will have to implement what we learned.
Agriculture was, and still is, about production of the largest amount of crops so as to get the largest benefit. Now we have a different way of looking at agriculture. We need production planning, to produce according to how much money the farmer has. How much can he borrow? How can he pay for his inputs (land, water, seeds, etc.), not only using the services of the merchant, the middleman? When the farmer has cash he can benefit from discounts and consequently he has a better chance to market his crop. Cooperative purchasing, for instance, will allow for cheaper inputs. Cooperative marketing of produce will also achieve better results.
For a farmer to practice sound production he must have a number of cooperative frameworks nearby at his disposal. When the producers, the farmers, share the same
point of view they can conceivably attain loans or be self-financed, saving part of their revenues resulting from their unity. We might have three cooperatives, or parts of one cooperative, in charge of three different elements: credit, input, marketing. That is a multipurpose cooperative.
As farmers and farming develop, there is a need to think about further development in terms of employment. Fewer people are needed for actual farming, but others might be employed in the food industry. Some people will be engaged in production and others in marketing. In this way the economy of the village can develop as a whole. The villagers might think of tourism, of nonagricultural employment and industries, of services, of infrastructure. During the course we had lectures on economics, individual management and leadership, types of leadership, future planning, rural development, practical thinking. My colleagues and I want to get together to implement what we learned.
We have had an opportunity to exchange ideas. We have formulated our needs and defined our problems and begun to look for solutions. The creation of agricultural cooperatives will lead to the creation of other kinds of cooperatives. Thus we could have comprehensive integrated development in the villages.
All the participants in the course actually work as farmers, either with their animals or their crops. They are the real beneficiaries of the course. The course opened their eyes to new ideas, how to participate in decision making and how to affect agricultural laws by combining their efforts. The course taught the farmer to work with others.
Yahya Abu Farhah (Abu Samer) from al Jalameh Village near Jenin
This course dealt with cooperatives and widened the horizons of the participants who will hopefully establish cooperatives in the future. The farmers participating in the course will organize themselves around particular ideas, aims and purposes and not at random or on the basis of family ties.
During the course we visited a number of agricultural centers using cooperation in various ways. We analyzed problems in order to find solutions, learned about timetables and feasibility studies. Most important we exchanged ideas. The participation of 120 farmers from more than 40 different locations provided an opportunity to develop relations among the farmers themselves.
Fathi Khdairat from Bardala Village in the Jordan Valley
I was undoubtedly motivated to participate in this course by my desire to gain information and to share the experiences of others in the areas of cooperatives and cooperation. I have some experience in the field of cooperatives in our area, but we came to the International Institute through our Palestinian Farmers' Union in order to gain know how and to apply whatever is suitable to our reality and conditions. In the past we used cooperatives, but put too much responsibility onto one person or even used them to further personal . We are in the process of building our state and one of the components of the future state is the cooperative.
More than half of the Palestinian community works in agriculture. Only 120 out of about three million people participated in this course. So this small group that gained know how has a challenge to confront, to start building cooperative bodies in the future.
Abd al-Hamid Abd al-Majid Dawabsheh from Duma Village near Nablus
We came from our villages in order to benefit from the experience of others. We benefited from learning more about how to organize cooperatives in order to raise the standard of living of groups whose conditions are in need of progress, development and technology.
We dealt with leadership, agriculture, technology and development.
Ibrahim Da'ik, head of the PFU in Ramallah,noted after the course that at the graduation ceremony in Nablus at the end of four weeks, participants presented organized workshops, describing their training and cooperative concepts to fellow farmers. In the flurry of activity that followed, farmers began negotiating with middlemen and salespeople, purchasing their inputs as a group to maximize their profits. Meetings were called with other farmers, who had not participated in the course, to start creating development projects in the light of what they had learned. One project that had immediate impact was the group of farmers in the Ramallah district which started to develop sheds for members' goats. They found land, built their own sheds and started a feasibility study to calculate sharing costs per farmer.
Another group, in Azzon Atmeh near Qalqilia, began negotiating with providers of transportation with the aim of reducing costs of getting their crops to market. A dispute with both the transporters and the central markets commission resulted, but when the farmers threatened to market their produce by themselves, bypassing the transporters and the commission, the price was lowered 2%.
Participants in the course are already encouraging their fellow farmers to reorganize cooperative procedures in local agricultural NGOs and have requested credit policy changes in the PFU to support the poorest sectors of the local Palestinian farming population. All in all, the course on establishing and managing farmers' cooperatives has had a positive impact.
Mahmoud Abu Hillal, head of the Middle East and Palestinian Authority Division at the International Institute, in summing up, said that because of its uniqueness and importance, the course was divided into four parts of one week each according to specialty or type of crop or animal. From the evaluations and reactions of all those involved, it is evident that the course was successful in changing thinking. There has already been a request to continue this type of course and to go deeper into the subject of cooperativism, especially leadership of cooperatives, with the hopes that development through cooperation and progress for our region will result.
Ofer Bronchtein, Director of the International Institute, stresses that, "It is a great privilege for us to offer training on issues that can assist Palestinan farmers, particularly in new management techniques, all this to a society where agriculture plays an important economic factor."