A cooperative is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled enterprise". Cooperatives are democratically controlled by their members, with each member having one vote in electing the board of directors. They differ from collectives in that they are generally built from the bottom-up, rather than the top-down. Cooperatives may include:
Local food is food that is produced within a short distance of where it is consumed, often accompanied by a social structure and supply chain different from the large-scale supermarket system.
Community-supported agriculture or cropsharing is a system that connects producers and consumers within the food system closer by allowing the consumer to subscribe to the harvest of a certain farm or group of farms. It is an alternative socioeconomic model of agriculture and food distribution that allows the producer and consumer to share the risks of farming. The model is a subcategory of civic agriculture that has an overarching goal of strengthening a sense of community through local markets.
CARE is a major international humanitarian agency delivering emergency relief and long-term international development projects. Founded in 1945, CARE is nonsectarian, impartial, and non-governmental. It is one of the largest and oldest humanitarian aid organizations focused on fighting global poverty. In 2019, CARE reported working in 104 countries, supporting 1,349 poverty-fighting projects and humanitarian aid projects, and reaching over 92.3 million people directly and 433.3 million people indirectly.
Land O'Lakes, Inc. is an American member-owned agricultural cooperative based in the Minneapolis-St. Paul suburb of Arden Hills, Minnesota, United States, focusing on the dairy industry. The cooperative has 1,959 direct producer-members, 751 member-cooperatives, and about 9,000 employees who process and distribute products for about 300,000 agricultural producers, handling 12 billion pounds of milk annually. It is ranked third on the National Cooperative Bank Co-op 100 list of mutuals and cooperatives. The co-op is one of the largest producers of butter and cheese in the United States through its dairy foods business; serves producers, animal owners and their families through more than 4,700 local cooperatives, independent dealers and other large retailers through its Purina Animal Nutrition business; and delivers seed, crop protection products, agricultural services and agronomic insights to 1,300 locally owned and operated cooperative and independent agricultural retailers and their grower customers through its WinField United business.
Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc. is an American agricultural cooperative of growers of cranberries headquartered in Plymouth County, Massachusetts. It currently has over 700 member growers. The cooperative employs about 2,000 people, with sales of $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2013 and accounts for 70% of North American cranberry production. Their products include cranberry sauce, fruit juices, fruit snacks, and dried cranberries.
Agribusiness is the industry, enterprises, and the field of study of value chains in agriculture and in the bio-economy, in which case it is also called bio-business or bio-enterprise. The primary goal of agribusiness is to maximize profit while satisfying the needs of consumers for products related to natural resources such as biotechnology, farms, food, forestry, fisheries, fuel, and fiber.
An agricultural cooperative, also known as a farmers' co-op, is a producer cooperative in which farmers pool their resources in certain areas of activities.
A CPA, or Agricultural Production Cooperative, is a type of agricultural cooperative that exists in Cuba.
A food cooperative or food co-op is a food distribution outlet organized as a cooperative, rather than a private or public company. Food cooperatives are usually consumer cooperatives, where the decisions regarding the production and distribution of its food are chosen by its members. Like all cooperatives, food cooperatives are often based on the 7 Rochdale Principles, and they typically offer natural foods. Decisions about how to run a cooperative are not made by outside shareholders, therefore cooperatives often exhibit a higher degree of social responsibility than their corporate analogues.
Cooperative banking is retail and commercial banking organized on a cooperative basis. Cooperative banking institutions take deposits and lend money in most parts of the world.
The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is an All India Financial Institution (AIFI) and an apex Supervisory Body for overall supervision of Regional Rural Banks, State Cooperative Banks and District Central Cooperative Banks in India. It was established under the NABARD Act 1981 passed by the Parliament of India. It is fully owned by Government of India and functions under the Department of Financial Services (DFS) under the Ministry of Finance.
The history of agriculture in India dates back to the Neolithic period. India ranks second worldwide in farm outputs. As per the Indian economic survey 2020 -21, agriculture employed more than 50% of the Indian workforce and contributed 20.2% to the country's GDP.
The history of the cooperative movement concerns the origins and history of cooperatives across the world. Although cooperative arrangements, such as mutual insurance, and principles of cooperation existed long before, the cooperative movement began with the application of cooperative principles to business organization.
E. Travis York, Jr. was an American agronomist, professor, university administrator, agricultural extension administrator, and U.S. presidential adviser. York was a native of Alabama, and earned his bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in agricultural sciences. He served as the director of the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service, the administrator of the federal Extension Service, the interim president of the University of Florida, and the chancellor of the State University System of Florida.
Collective farming and communal farming are various types of "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member-owners jointly engage in farming activities as a collective; and state farms, which are owned and directly run by a centralized government. The process by which farmland is aggregated is called collectivization. In some countries, there have been both state-run and cooperative-run variants. For example, the Soviet Union had both kolkhozy and sovkhozy.
According to a study done by the National Work to Fight Desertification program, over 60 percent of the land in Lebanon is at risk of desertification. According to The World Bank, the country's arable land, having reached 23.5% of the country's territory during the years 1971–1973, fell to 11.1% in 2010 and, as of 2021, had risen to just 13.6%. Lebanon's land desertification spreads 60 kilometers, beginning at the edge of the city Baalbek and continuing to its border with Syria. Most studies on desertification in Lebanon have concluded that the area of northern Bekaa is the region most affected by this environmental issue.
The Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) was an extension agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), part of the executive branch of the federal government. The 1994 Department Reorganization Act, passed by Congress, created CSREES by combining the former Cooperative State Research Service and the Extension Service into a single agency.
Amrik Singh Cheema was an Indian civil servant, author, an advocate of green revolution and a former vice chancellor of the Punjab Agricultural University, known for his contributions to the agricultural initiatives of the Indian government. He was honoured by the Government of India in 1969, with the award of Padma Shri, the fourth highest Indian civilian award for his contributions to the society.
Gurcharan Singh Kalkat was an Indian agricultural scientist and the founder chairman of the Punjab State Farmers Commission (PSFC), known for his contributions in bringing the green revolution to Punjab. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Shri in 1981 and followed it up with the third highest Indian civilian award of Padma Bhushan in 2007.
€ 4.2 billion [1] (2014)
