Learning from History
Turn of-the-Century Agricultural Marketing Cooperatives:
- Cooperation as legal and economic framework
- Sold directly to the market
- Turned crops into consumer-ready goods
- Established brand names and national advertising campaigns
- Management by marketing business managers
- Backed by banks
Learning from Present Day Cooperatives
Cooperative: An autonomous group of people who jointly (collectively) own and democratically control a business conducted by (or on behalf of) the group of people (members) who engage in business "activities" for the benefit of the members.
Juan Valdez - Made up of individual coffee farmers
- Over a half million members
- Power and influence of a large corporation.
 Sunkist - In business for over 100 years
- Comprised of 6,000 members from California and Arizona
- Not-for-profit corporation, all profits returned to the growers
|
