Agricultural cooperatives and the agrarian question

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AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVES AND THE AGRARIAN QUESTION

Rangarirai Gavin Muchetu

Doshisha University, Japan

Abstract

The majority of people in African societies live in the rural areas and at the heart of their problems lies an

unresolved agrarian question (AQ). Development outcomes can therefore be achieved through a series of

coherent policies to address this question (Moyo S. , 2010). The resolution to this question has always been

polarized. While some scholars advocated for the industrialization path (World Bank, IMF), others advocated

for a peasant path (Lenin, Angels). Furthermore, some literature focuses on the political enclaves while others

emphasizes on socio-economic development as the panacea. Some literature even argues that the AQ doesn’t

exist anymore (Bernstein, 2006), other scholars do not only disagree with this, but go further to argue that the

contemporary AQ has broadened in dimension to include gender, ecology and regional integration (Moyo, Jha,

& Yeros, 2013; McMichael, 2014). Scholarship has failed to break out of this polarized cyclic binary trap, a few

attempts to come up with a third-way-type of solution have often remained muted. Scott (1998) and Hayami

(2005) criticizes this rigid state-market dichotomy and advocate the consideration of the communityas a third

player.The cooperative-model fits well as a third-way approach as it simultaneously strengthens community

organization and speaks volumes in terms of answering the various forms of the contemporary agrarian question.

Cognisant of the pervasively huge negative contradictions of globalization or neo-liberalism, answers to the AQ

should not undermine an economic player by promoting another as superior. Although the cooperative

development has its own set of pros and cons, it is the only model that seeks to improve rural people’s access

and control of natural resources, production and marketing systems. It is the only model that seeks to

simultaneously take the peasant and industrialization paths while achieving socio-economic and political

development. Using data collected as part of a PhD thesis between January and March 2018 in Zimbabwe, this

paper discusses the potential role that cooperatives can play as a third-way type of intervention. It reveals that

there is a new wave of bottom-up cooperatives whose characteristics and direction is detached from the pre-

colonial British-Indian type of cooperatives, and these adequately if supported have the potential to succeed.

Key words: Cooperatives, agrarian question, agricultural marketing, poverty reduction, rural development

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1. Introduction and context

Agrarian societies, such as most of those of countries in the global south, have at the heart of their

problems, an unresolved agrarian question. Development outcomes can therefore be achieved

through a series of coherent policies that target resolution of the agrarian question (Moyo S. , 2010).

A number of suggested answers have unfortunately taken two theoretically polarized positions. On

one end is a school of thought that pontifies industrialization and how it is a single silver-bullet for

development. In this school of thought, the markets are viewed as the panacea for socio-economic

development. Free markets enable investors to inject capital into efficient economic sectors,

accordingly, this capital is supposed to create wealth, which eventually trickles down to other low-

efficient economic sectors. This directly translates to a focus on ‘efficient’ industry at the expense

of ‘in-efficient’ agriculture (which supports the peasantry). On the other end is the argument that

edify the need for structural transformation towards agriculture. The argument here is that since a

substantial number of developing countries have overwhelming agrarian societies, the answer to

the AQ lies in agrarian reform. It is therefore necessary for the reform to be carried out in order to

incite structural transformation that will lead to massive development outcomes(Muchetu,

2018).In other words, this acknowledges that embedded within the agrarian question is the land

question and thus, massive redistribution of land becomes crucial in resolving the agrarian question.

In stark contrast to the former, this focus on agriculture will have to be driven by purposive

government interventions such as taxation, regulation and less private freedoms. What is evident

from these two basic approaches is the role that either the government or the market (private sector)

has to play in economic development. What then becomes an important point of departure for

contemporary economic development scholars is to ask, in the historical context, what has worked

and what has not?

For the past century, the predominant global production model that drove massive economic

developments in Europe, USA and Japan was essentially a transition from agrarian societies via

the industrialization path and was pushed largely by the owners of capital. However, these

developed countries achieved success through industrialization because they had a huge agrarian

base which supported industrial growth (see Amin, 2012; Moyo, Jha, & Yeros, 2013; Patnaik &

Moyo, 2012; Chayanov, 1991). Moyo, Jha and Yeros (2013) goes further to say that the

canonization of the industrialization path fails to consider the role of the national, land and peasant

questions as well as the imperialistic nature of American and European industrialization. What this

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means is development in the north through industrialization was historically subsidized by poor

countries in the south through colonies and continue to be subsided through exploitative nature of

global value chains. Overwhelming empirical evidence has shown that, over the last century

flirtations withneo-liberal frameworks have resulted in the propagation of social and economic

enclaves both at national and global level.

It is not untrue that at some point all nations were equal and a massive restructuring and

redistribution of the global wealth had to be done, often times in a violent manner. Figure 1 gives

a visual representation of the results of the capitalist approach to economic development over the

past century. What it basically shows is the global north growing fatter and fatter while the global

south grows thinner and thinner as the capitalist mode of production continues.

Figure 1: The world map in proportion to the GDP per capita

Source: BMJ (2018), http://www.bmj.com/content/335/7625/873

As already alluded to, the capitalist onslaught mostly affects the peasants who make the bulk of

the population in the global south. The capitalist mode of production, whose tentacles have weaved

their way into the peasant economies through various vices like contract farming, hedging and

futures market arrangements has resulted in an increase in social exclusion, poverty and

underdevelopment (Mazwi & Muchetu, 2015; Mazwi, Chambati, & Mberi, 2018).

If capitalism has been so disastrous, one might ask what are the options available for economic

development? Scholarly polarization, and almost institutionalized binary frameworks of problem

solving, has led to the extreme opposite end of capitalism to be suggested as an answer. This is the

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case in which the state is completely in charge of the economy by deciding the supply and demand

of private and public goods. Ideally, the state is chosen by the people, unlike capitalist individuals,

hence to a larger extent is supposed to act in the best interest of the people. In this respect, a state-

led economy is supposed to eventually result in more equal distribution of the national treasures.

However, history has also shown us that this is not always the case, this issue forms much of the

debate in Scott (1998) as he discussed why some of the greatest state-led programs such as in

China, Russia and Tanzania had drastically failed. Scott therefore argues that failures by the state

were because they imposed programs on the people and ignored local indigenous knowledge in

designing programs or development interventions. Often, state planning has neither provisions for

practical knowledge and informal processes nor does it allow improvising in the face of

unpredictability. He further paints a more disturbing picture of the state’s involvement in the rural

areas by highlighting that in most cases, the state is concerned with improving its ability to exploit

the peasants. Using the analogy of how a beekeeper designs the beehive to enable easy collection

of honey, he argues that the government is mostly concerned in how it can easily control the

peasant by providing just enough for them to reproduce while extracting surplus labour and

collecting taxes. Although Scott’s writing is sometimes uncomfortably described by other scholars

as anarchist, a couple of lessons can be drawn from his arguments. Firstly, the state should not use

what he called a high modernist ideology or put simply, a top-down approach to development

because this excludes the actual needs of the people it seeks to develop. Secondly, the state cannot

work on its own, it needs to take into account other players including the private individuals. In

actual fact, the state and the private sector, although thought of as antagonistic, are always working

together according to Amin (2018):

“The reality is that monopoly capital even in imperialist countries needs the machinery of

the state. They have domesticated the state to serve their exclusive interests. You can see it

in the way [President Donald] Trump uses the government in the U.S. And you can also

see it in the so-called national consensus states like Britain, France and Germany. So, to

say that market forces …[can]… replace the state is nonsense”

(Amin, 2018)

Thirdly, the existent of a prostate civil society is highly undesirable. In cases where the state has a

high modernist ideology and a prostate civil society, failure is almost guaranteed and catastrophic.

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Furthermore, in the same scenario, if a government starts working with the private businesses

against the people, massive negative effects ensues.

Hayami Yujiro highlighted the dynamics of the state and private relations and just like Scott,

emphasized the need for a stronger role of the community. Hayami & Godo (2005) argue that

markets do not operate in a vacuum, and that the market can only function efficiently if the players;

the state, the corporates and the community, all play fairly and obey the rules of the game. Thus,

at the very least, the government is expected to carry the regulatory job. They argue that the market

almost always fails, and in these times, when the market has failed and produces economic

inefficient outcomes decorated by widespread income inequality, it is the role of the state to come

up with measures to rectify this. It is however important to note that the state itself can fail, in

cases where it fails, it is usually because of corruption (misuse of funds and rent seeking taxation

systems)(Hayami & Godo, 2005). In such a case, there is need for a third fall back mechanism

which should be in the form of the community. One of Hayami’s greatest contribution to

development economics is represented in Figure 2 in which places equal importance on the three

stakeholders in socio-economic development.

Figure 2: Hayami Yujiro’s framework for development

Source: Created by author based on Hayami&Goto (2005)

The biggest reason for market failure in a market led economy is the huge asymmetry of

information. This happens because the state usually does not have enough information about the

particularistic behaviour of the players, i.e. the community and the corporates (Otsuka &Kalirajan,

2010). In this case, the role of the community within the community-market-state framework is

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provision of information to the government. In the same case, information asymmetries also exist

between the corporates and the community, and when the community engages with the market,

they do so, more or less blind-folded. This is another source of the market failures and thus it

becomes the state’s role to provide the community with information. As already discussed, the

market sometimes fails, and so does the state/government hence the need to have the community

to also participate and remedy the situation. The community also fails and hence will need the state

and the market. Hayami argues that community-led innovations are inspired by the need to increase

productivity and management while market-led is usually driven by the need to increase profits.

Both these drivers are very important and hence should be present in all the markets.

Superimposing Hayami’s framework on Zimbabwe is ideal because indeed limited information

about community needs is available to the corporates and to the government. Hence the need to

integrate the community into the development model becomes salient. Over the past two or so

decades, the debate on the need to include the community has received attention and development

agencies have tried to factor this into their programs by advocating for a bottom-up and

participatory development program. However, what has been understudied is the fact that the

community is highly disorganized. The community does not speak with one voice, and in the case

of Zimbabwe, the situation is even worse. This can be attributed to the socio-economic hardships

that have ensued the rural space ever since the ESAP era in the 1990s. On the other hand, in the

post-2000s, the state has also been experiencing economic turmoil in the aftermath of the land

reform. So overall, we had a weak community, a troubled government and due to a number of

international restrictions, a crippled corporates market. This led to arguably Zimbabwe’s two lost

decades. The challenge therefore, even for the government that will take charge from August 2018,

is to figure out a relationship that integrates the efforts of community, state and the market thereby

doing away with the binaries of development frameworks.

2. The agrarian question

The discussion above has explained the polarity and binaries in development discourse and has

elaborated the need for a movement away from looking at achieving development either as black

or white. The article has so far highlighted the nature of societies in the global south which are

dominated by the rural people, hence validating the need for a refocusing of resources to develop

agriculture which forms the major source of livelihood for these people. And with Zimbabwe in

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focus, land reform might have done well in terms of redistribution, it is yet to reach its maximum

potential in terms of production, protection and social cohesion which requires greater community

organization (Mazwi, Muchetu, & Chibwana, 2017). A lot more still needs to be done for the

resettled farmer through provision of finance, technical know-how and establishment of stable

commodity markets, the state has tried to do this in vail. What then is the best way of resolving

the agrarian question (AQ) in Zimbabwe, Africa and the global south? How can we advance a

development trajectory for the rural folks that protects them from the vagaries of capitalist

exploitation and ensures that the peasantry regains control of their rural economies? Let us try and

explore what the agrarian question is.

Moyo (2010) differentiates the agrarian question into two distinct forms; the classical and the

contemporary agrarian question. He argues that, in addition to the classical agrarian question which

asks of the manner of transitioning from agrarian into industrialized societies, the contemporary

agrarian question goes further to ask sub-questions of ecology, sustainability, equality and gender.

These issues, in the context of globalization, present near-unsurmountable obstacles to the

resolution of the agrarian question. Efforts to increase agricultural production have to be cognisant

of international trading equilibriums, global production and markets forces and the ubiquitous

hegemony of transnational capital (Bernstein 2001 in Moyo 2010). If truth be told, market

liberalization is unavoidable, peasants just need to find a way to face, the hegemony of finance

capital (and all other forms of capitalism) head-on. Governments across the global south have

experimented with various developmental programs in an attempt to reconfigure the rural space.

In Zimbabwe, just as across Africa, post-independence policies such as import substitution,

economic structural adjustment programs and/or market liberalisation approaches have all resulted

in extension of capital’s hegemony in the rural economy (Shivji, 2009). Recent approaches

facilitated by market liberalisation include out-grower schemes, contract farming, insurance,

patented technologies (chemicals and suicide seeds) and provision of credit at usury. More recent

global events such as the food crisis of 2007/8 led to increased ‘land grabs’ and widespread

pauperisation of the majority in the global south (see Figure 3). More and more peasant families

across Asia, Africa and South America are unable to reproduce themselves as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: The world map in proportion to the number of people living on ≤$10 a day

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Source: BMJ (2018), http://www.bmj.com/content/335/7625/873

Furthermore, extreme low levels of social cohesion mean weak social organizations, further

defragmenting small-scale farmer’s voices. Across the majority of the African countries with

agriculture-based economies, and who, in the aftermath of attaining colony independence,

implemented structural adjustment programs; unemployment, reduced livelihoods and gender

inequalities became a common phenomenon. The result has been huge income inequalities

(seeFigure 4). Over half of all family farms have appallingly low resilience and high vulnerability

in light climate-change problems. Although some donors have taken the initiative to focus on

small-holder development, they simultaneously give MNCs huge and uncontrolled access to

African resources. A huge body of literature that was used to justify the drive for free markets

maintains that liberalization stimulates growth and reduces poverty, generates employment,

relieves governments of debt, allows local farmers to participate, access and be integrated into the

global economy (Cuadros et al. 2004). But on the contrary, this path has worsened the plight of

the rural people in Africa who constitute 60-70% of the national populations in the global south.

Figure 4:Global Income distribution (2005US$)weighted by population (2011)

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All these socio-economic ills form the basis of the contemporary agrarian question in Africa which

led some scholars to call for a total global disengagement from the markets. Their argument is that

capitalism cannot be expected to solve global inequality problems because in nature, it is a system

that thrives on solving problems in one locality by creating two or more in a different locality. It

can never solve its own contradictions (see also McMicheal, 2009; Shanin, 1981).

However, in trying to solve the agrarian question, it is noteworthy that a full disengagement from

the capitalist mode of production is a herculean task. This needs the 99% of the global poor

population to cooperate and challenge all institutions that perpetuate capitalism and free

themselves from the ‘free market’, by doing away with the commodification of land and labour.

Thus, the long and short of it is that there is need to overcome an unprecedented increase in

volatility of inputs/outputs markets, unfair trade practices (agricultural commodity markets are

dominated by MNCs), climate change, environmental degradation and gender inequalities that

restrict development of the rural areas.

“The contradictions of neoliberal capitalism express themselves through agrarian

relations in various forms of ‘accumulation through dispossession’, concentrating

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and centralising agribusiness capital, privatizing states, redistributing social

resources away from labouring classes and peasantries, and degrading

environments”

(McMicheal, 2009, p. 415)

Against the background of persistent rural poverty, inequality, and increasing concerns over food

security in the context of environmental change, agriculture has received renewed attention as a

key sector for inclusive development in sub-Saharan Africa. A number of countries in the Sub-

Sahara considered variants of land reforms, for example titling (Kenya) or restitution (South

Africa). A more comprehensive land reform in Zimbabwe brought about what Moyo (2010)

termed ‘necessary but not sufficient condition’ for resolving the agrarian question. The Zimbabwe

government, subsequent to the reform, has struggled to support (through input and output markets)

the new agrarian structure. Patnaik (2003) underscores the role of agriculture in shifting societies

from pre to post agrarian, and this massage has slowly diffused through to the polarized world of

development studies. Think-tanks and development agencies such as the WB and FAO are now

realizing that agriculture is a key component for the African industrialization process. Agriculture

produces the raw materials and labour necessary for a growing industrial sector. In this respect,

the debate has shifted from ‘is focus on agriculture the best way to industrialize the global south’,

to ‘what is the best agricultural production model that leads to industrialization’. What has

continued to polarize debates is ‘what is the ideal agrarian transformative model to adopt?’. Some

scholars propose that agricultural production should be spear-headed by large scale commercial

farmers on vast tracks of land. Others emphasize the importance of integrating peasant farming in

the developmental approach arguing that a large-scale led approach would indeed increase

aggregate GDP but will not have the same impact on reducing rural poverty and underdevelopment,

as seen in the Latin American large-scale oriented agricultural estates.

3. Cooperatives and the nexus with the agrarian question

3.1 Brief history of cooperatives and their development

In this article, we agree with the arguments pushed in Scott (1998) and Hayami &Godo (2005),

and we argue for the need to further strengthen and amplify voices of social organizations through

formation of peasant cooperatives. This is in line with Patnaik P. (2017)’s argument that the

challenging the capitalist system will need the forging of a peasants-workers alliance. Market

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contact cannot be avoided, but there is need to level the playing field so that a minimum level of

mutually beneficial development outcomes are achieved. As alluded to earlier, scholarship needs

to admit that the biggest problem that undermines community and or peasant participation is the

fact that the countryside is highly disorganized. The disjointed peasant voice is never listened to;

before, during and after formulation and implementation of development programs. This is the

reason why capital (and at times, capital with the help of the state), easily acquires a hegemony in

the countryside. Most rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa are devoid of formalized farmer groups or

farmer lobby organisation that can sue or take proactive action against exploitation. And in cases

where they exist, these were formed by former white-farmers (South Africa, Zambia, Malawi and

Zimbabwe) or are ‘captured’ by the state (Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya) (Moyo S. , 2000). The

silent yet salient voices of the peasantry needs to be awakened and the focus should be on rural

people centred social reconfiguration. As such, this study proposes the cooperative model as a

more ideal development approach to the problems of the rural areas. This is because, as shall be

discussed in proceeding sections, cooperatives speak to a wide spectrum of issues within the

agrarian question. Cooperatives, by nature have an insatiable need to resolve the agrarian question.

They have the greatest potential to transform the nature and character of a transition/trajectory

from a developing to a developed nation.

We would like to highlight that, although cooperatives are a simple and fairly old ideal or

development approach, there seems to be very little known about them in development discourse.

In simple terms, cooperatives are autonomous and independent organizations with open or

voluntary membership, and whose control is democratic. These organizations are not motivated

by profit-making, which sets them apart from corporates and ideally places them in a position to

actually fight poverty and under-development, Figure 5 shows a list of cooperatives principles as

recommended by the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA). Although cooperation is part of

every society, the first formal cooperatives were recorded in England by the Rochdale pioneers

(1844), and the same concept would later be recorded in Germany through the Raiffeisen and

Schulze-Delitzsch cooperatives(1860-1880). The movement then later spread to other areas, albeit

with some localized modifications such as the collectives and communes in Russia and China

respectively, or the Japanese Agricultural Cooperatives in Japan in the mid-1900s.

Figure 5: Principles of cooperatives as recommended by the ICA.

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Source: Willy Street Cooperative (2016)

The history of agricultural cooperatives in Africa is well documented in literature, of interest is

how they were initially formed by the former colonial governments to serve colony interest(Wedig

& Weigratz, 2018). In Zimbabwe, the first cooperatives were formally registered in the aftermath

of the Cooperative Societies Act of 1956 which formalised white-settler farmer’s cooperatives

which had been in existent for about two decades by then(Musininga, 1988; World-Bank, 1989).

Although the concept of cooperatives is a way of life for most societies, and hence was already

integrated into socio-economic institutions in native reserves areas, formalized cooperative

structures were later introduced by the colonial government. These cooperatives were based on the

Ceylon Cooperative Ordinance of 1922 which was in turn modelled around the British Indian

Pattern of Cooperatives, hence to some extent, they were created by the colonizers as a way to gain

control of the indigenous/local farmers production(Musininga, 1988; Scott, 1998; Wedig &

Weigratz, 2018). In essence, this type of cooperative model was supposed to help the members

establish their cooperative in setting up by-laws as well as with some initial financial assistance.

In time, the presence of the government was supposed to be minimized when the movement

became self-regulating and self-reliant. However, just as in all former British colonies, this was

not the case as the hegemony of the colonial state increased with time. Unfortunately, upon

attaining independence in 1980, the Zimbabwe government continued with the same scotch-earth

policy on the peasant cooperatives. At the peak of the government control, collectives/communes

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were created through the pre-2000 land resettlement program, infamously known as the Model B.

As rightfully observed by Mudege (1995), the state had too much power over the Model B

cooperatives through the resettlement officers and 12 technical advisors. Furthermore, instead of

reforming the government-run cooperatives, the introduction of the Economic Structural

Adjustment Programs (ESAP) in October 1990 significantly dismantled them through a drastic

reduction of government support.

3.2 Connecting the dots

The discussion has so far highlighted the existence of an agrarian question, and that the only way

to solve this problem is to involve the rural community in formulating solutions to their problems.

Furthermore, we have highlighted how rural spaces are highly disorganized and that the best option

for improving social organization is through peasant cooperatives. In addition to a brief description

of what cooperatives are (provided above), it becomes necessary now to try and understand how

cooperatives are the solution. We now seek to answer and succinctly establish the nexus and the

method in which cooperatives are better placed than other social organizations. Lenin and Angels

discussed the social and political dimension of the agrarian question respectively, but Chayanov

came with the economic dimensions which to a greater extent speaks to this article (Moyo, Jha, &

Yeros, 2013). Based on the two definitions as shown below, Chayanov’s conceptualization of

cooperatives is extremely appealing to the AQ because his cooperative had strength in both

entrepreneurial-ship and as cooperative social movement:

“A cooperative is an economic enterprise made up of several voluntary associated

individuals whose main aim is not to obtain the maximum profit from capital outlay but to

increase the income derived from the work of its members, or to reduce the latter’s

expenditure by means of common economic management”

M TuganBaranovskii in (Chayanov, 1991, p. 14)

“A cooperative is a voluntary association of some individuals which aims, by its joint

efforts, to combat the exploitation (by capital) and to improve the position of its members

through the production, exchange and distribution of economic benefits, thus as producers,

consumers or sellers of labour”

K Pazhitov in (Chayanov, 1991, p. 14)

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As alluded to above, the contemporary agrarian question has a variety of dimensions which may

be separate from each other but at the same time converge and overlap with each other. These may

include inter alia, the land question (because of new forms of land alienation), the national

question, the peasant question, gender question, ecological question, the agrarian finance question,

the labour question, the industrialization question, liberalization and the regional integration

questions. The cooperative development model speaks volumes in terms of answering some of

these forms and/or dimensions of the contemporary agrarian question.

More clearly, the labour question is a strength of cooperatives. They hire within their membership

and carry out extensive human resource development to capacitate their members on how to run

the cooperative. Skilled labour only outsourced in the initial stages of the cooperative lifespan. In

addition, labour is employed directly and paid even-handedly according to its value rather than its

price. ILO (2015) highlight compelling evidence which suggest that cooperatives leads in

worldwide youth job creation. Globally, approximately 100 million jobs are directly linked to the

global cooperative movement (ibid). Cooperatives, especially multipurpose ones have a whole

wide spectrum of peasant challenges they can address, the agrarian question of ecology and

sustainability are also spoken to. They are formed by the farmers whose major concern also

includes the need to preserve their land so that they can bequeath it to their offspring. This enables

them to sustainably exploit their own resources, take care of the environment and most importantly,

profit from utilization of their own surplus labour, a benefit which is usually absent within a free

market set-up. Sustainability of the cooperative itself is achieved through the concept of self-help.

Which means they do not have to heavily rely on external financial sources once the cooperative

kicks off.

Figure 6: Linkages between the agrarian question and the cooperative movement

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Figure 6is a summary of the agrarian question and the respective cooperative response to the

problem. While some lambast and lampoon cooperatives as being too localized, thus not concerned

with national interests, we may argue that it is in fact this character of being localized that enables

cooperatives to be pro-nationalization. By nature, cooperatives are best suited to fight the

burgeoning level of poverty, inequalities and social exclusion as they identify a variety of

economic opportunities for their members, individual risk is reduced through collective risk taking.

Case studies in Tanzania have shown how multi-purpose cooperatives go further than Savings and

Credit Cooperative Organisations (SACCO) which focus on provision of finance, however multi-

purpose cooperatives transcends into other non-farm income projects (payment of cooperative

dividends is a source of non-farm income itself) (ILO, 2015). Perennial peasant problems such as

remoteness, lack of access of information, poor infrastructure, low access to inputs/output markets

and low levels of access to loans; are extremely solvable through the cooperative path. This is

because cooperatives simultaneously undertake group marketing, credit mobilisation, information

dissemination, active education, foster innovation, skills and capacity building for its members

(ibid). Within their community, these organizations are able to do infrastructural development

which maybe too expensive for the government or maybe unprofitable for the private sector.

There is overwhelming evidence that show high women participation in cooperatives in countries

such as Tanzania and Japan with women membership in some specific non-gender specific

cooperatives reaching as high as 65% and 95% respectively (ILO, 2015, p. 7). Women also have

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their own cooperatives to fight inequality and social exclusion, which appeals to the agrarian

question of gender. However, there still is a lot of potential for the cooperatives to bring women

further to the front line in agriculture. This is because there are inequalities in the access to

education; which affects access to information, level skills, land ownership and access to finance.

This is why women participation in cash crop cooperative groups was found to be low in studies

of cocoa and coffee production in west Africa and some parts of east Africa (ILO, 2015) and/or

cotton, sugar and tobacco production in Zimbabwe (Mazwi & Muchetu, 2015). However, as

discussed, cooperatives offer education to women so that they can overcome/reduce these gender

inequalities.

4. The rejection of cooperatives in the developmental discourse

So far, the paper has presented cooperatives as the panacea for agricultural and rural development

and briefly alluded to the history of the formation of the cooperatives. The next pertinent question

in this debate is why and how has the cooperative model been less attractive to international

development agents, NGO and governments? This is a very difficult question to answer, however,

the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International cooperative alliance (ICA)

laments of a narrow understanding and view of the movement.ILO (2015)argued that literature on

cooperatives has not been comprehensive enough in defining the actual and potential role that

cooperatives can and/or are playing in the global economy. The global cooperative movement’s

financial footprint stood at US$3 trillion dollars in 2014 making it one of the biggest organizations

both in terms of membership and economic hegemony in the world (Schwettmann, 2014). This

paper will help bring cooperativism to the fore and get policy makers and development agents to

consider cooperativism as a conduit for rural development, for fighting poverty and inequalities

within the peasantry.

Some may argue that cooperatives are a relatively old idea that is not worth considering in the 21st

century. However, this alone does not explain why cooperatives have virtually failed to make it

into contemporary development discourses, alas countries in the global north utilized the model

during their development stages. They were able to reduce poverty levels in the peasantry as in the

case of Germany’s Raiffeisen & Schulze-Delitzsch cooperatives and the Rochdale Pioneers

cooperatives in England. In recent times, agricultural cooperatives have been very successful in

China where the trajectory in which the peasantry are in is not too dissimilar to that of the African

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peasantry(Hairong & Yiyuan, 2013).Given that the world order has been inclined towards

capitalist production over the past 100 years, and also given that cooperatives have historically

been associated with socialism and communism, promotion of cooperatives is feared as an entry

point for socialism [see (Chayanov, 1991; Dore, 2012; Lenin, 1923; Marx, 1894; Jossa, 2014).

Indeed, the growth of most government-led cooperatives in Africa began to decrease with the fall

of the Soviet Union in the mid-1900s (ibid). Undeniably, such statements as:

“Cooperation, which we formerly ridiculed as huckstering, constitutes the social regime

we have to support by any means, reorganize the population of Russia in cooperative

societies on a sufficiently large-scale”

“If the whole of the peasantry had been organized in cooperatives, we would by now have

been standing with both feet on the soil of socialism”

“[…] the system of civilized cooperators is the system of socialism”

made by Lenin (1923) himself in support of cooperatives has often been misinterpreted and has

led to a number of pro-capitalist development agents completely shunning the cooperative model.

What they failed to understand is that, for Lenin, cooperatives were a means to an end and not an

end itself, thus cooperative is a powerful means of reorganizing societies which may lead to

socialism yes, but which might lead to a more efficient socio-economic production. In fact, Dondo

(2012), in their studies of Kenyan and Tanzanian cooperative utilized a classical economics model

to analyse the potential of cooperatives. They concluded that cooperatives are a viable channel for

rural development. Ortmann & King (2007) also employed the New Institutional Economics

theory in their study of South African cooperatives. They concluded that cooperatives played a

significant role in the global north as they supplied the requisites for farming and also were at the

fore of commodity marketing. In the context of Africa, Ortmann and King underscored the need

for cooperatives to be oblivious of the cooperative lifecyle and be able to know when to reform in

line with the changing global ecomic environment. We therefore argue that there is need for policy

makers and development agents to change the way they view cooperatives. They need to realize

that cooperatives are in actual fact the best way of developing the country-side within a new

institutional economics framework. The recentment towards cooperatives is simply unjustified and

hence should be done away with.

18

The latter sections of this paper point to the fact that indeed cooperatives can prosper, if they are

well managed and well-funded (just like any other corporate entity) while at the same time if they

are aware of the need to reform and adapt with the socio-economic environment in which they

operate in. The next step is to try and find out if indeed cooperatives have been able to do this. For

this, we turn to data collected in Goromonzi rural district (communal areas and resettled areas).

Given the background of colonial era type of cooperatives, the objective of the study was to try

and understand if there are any differences in the trajectories taken by cooperatives in the

communal areas (old or colonial cooperatives) and those in the resettled areas (new post land

reform cooperatives). We present the primary data collected from 192 structured questionnaires,

8key informant interviews (including with ministry officials) and secondary data from various

relevant sources in the proceeding section.

5. The topography of cooperatives in Zimbabwe.

Cooperatives should not be viewed as a means to fight capitalism per se, rather they should be

viewed as a means for the peasantry to better negotiate with capitalism, this is what Amin (2018)

referred to as the means to move away from the current liberal globalization tonegotiated

globalization. The theory of peasant cooperatives emphasized that the success of cooperatives

depends a combination of development linkages between diverse forms of farming

organizations(Chayanov, 1991, p. 225). The emphasis is on the presence of organizational methods

that enable implementation of socio-economic ideas within the cooperative. Therefore, in this

section, we analyze data from cooperatives in Zimbabwe to get a clear understanding of their

trajectory and their potential to answer the agrarian question.

We analyzed data from cooperatives in i)the resettled areas (A1) i.e. those formed after the land

reform era and ii)the communal areas (CA) who were mainly formed in the colonial era. Although

some argue that the A1-peasant is an extension of the CA-peasant, there are significant differences

in terms of labour hiring, land sizes and production, in this study, the biggest difference to which

we reference our analysis is the fact that the cooperatives in the A1 are relatively new.

Predominately using descriptive analysis and information obtained from key informant interviews,

we focused on the level of organization attained by the cooperative, i.e. the robustness of the

management committees. The rational for this is that the commonly identified cooperatives

problems such as free-rider problems, control problems, adaptation to innovations and

19

technological developments (see Ortmann & King, 2007) all depend on the robustness of the

cooperative management structures.

5.1 Socio-economic status of the cooperators.

The respondents in this study were full time farmers drawn from a total of 9 cooperatives in

Goromonzi district which is located in Mashonaland East Province. Seven of these cooperatives

were in the Communal Areas (CA) and were involved in a variety of agricultural production

activities ranging from organic gardening to eggs production and dairy milk production (Chikwata

Dairy Cooperative, Gosha Eggs Cooperative, Gutu Golden Eggs, Kumboedza Cooperative

Gardens, ShunguOrgnanic Cooperative, Simba Ivhu Cooperative and Survival Skills Cooperative).

The other two cooperatives were in the resettled area (A1) with the predominant activity being

field and horticultural production (Tagarika Irrigation Cooperative and Xanadu A Agric

Cooperative).

The average membership of the nine cooperatives was 71 and was slightly higher in the CA (75)

than in the A1 sector (66). Female membership outnumbered males 57.7% to 42.3%, however,

there was a significant statistical difference between females in A1 (37.9%) and the communal

areas as more females (70.7%) were members of the cooperative groups (Table 1). The majority

of the cooperative members (70%) were married across the two settlement models followed by

those who were widowed (23.4%). Although 82% of the widowed cooperative members were

females, there were no significant statistical differences in marital status between the two models

in terms of marital status. We discuss the reason for lower women participation and the

implications in later sections (see Table 5).

Table 1: Gender and marital status of cooperative members

20

Source: Cooperative survey (2018)

Given the proximity to the capital city, Harare, some studies in the same area have found that

farmers straddle between farming, on/off-farm wage labour in the city(Chambati, 2017). However,

approximately 83% of the cooperators were unemployed and hence were full time farmers earning

their livelihoods from agricultural and on-farm production (Table 2). Furthermore, 17.7% of the

respondents had never earned any income from formal sources, hence have always relied on

farming. Of the 65.6% who had been formerly employed, only 11.3% were receiving pensions.

This information is particularly important in terms of the working definitions of who the farmer or

peasant is. Additionally, the peasant cooperative theory appeals more to peasant societies with

limited livelihood options.

Table 2: Employment status of members


The level of education and technical skills attained through agricultural technical training vital in

management and assimilation of information. The majority of the cooperators were literate,

meaning that they could at least read and write as seen from the fact that only 3.6% of the

respondents had no formal education, however the majority (96.4%) managed to complete at least7

Category Variable A1 CA Total mean % mean % mean %

Gender male 41 62.1 22 29.3 30 42.3 female 25 37.9 53 70.7 41 57.7 Total (average) 66 100 75 100 71 100

Marital status

No. % No. % No. % Married 68 73.9 67 67 135 70.3 Single 1 1.1 0 0 1 0.5 Divorced 1 1.1 3 3 4 2.1 Separated 1 1.1 6 6 7 3.6 Widowed 21 22.8 24 24 45 23.4

Employment status A1 CA Total

No. % No. % No. %

Never been employed 22 23.9 12 12 34 17.7 Formerly employed 59 64.1 67 67 126 65.6

Unemployed 81 88 79 79 160 83.3 Receiving pension 8 9.9 10 12.7 18 11.3 Currently employed 11 12 21 21 32 16.7

21

years of primary education (Figure 7). There were no significant differences between the two

settlement models in terms of the level of education just as in the case of agricultural training. Only

3% of the respondents had received formal agricultural training (in which they were presented with

a certification document). In-depth interviews revealed that cooperatives carry out member

trainings on production of certain agricultural produce on a regular basis, however they were not

in any position to give certificates except in rare occasions, certificate of attendance. Hence,

according to our data, the level of education and training is extremely questionable, this will affect

flow and comprehension of information and the quality of the management committee.

Figure 7: Level of education attained and formal agricultural training received


5.2 Establishment of cooperatives

In this section, we look at how the cooperatives were established andthe differences that exists

between the two settlement areas. In our earlier discussion, we highlighted how cooperative has

an insatiable need to improve or develop the lives of the members as its primary goal. Overall,

improvement of the standard of living (33.3%); empowering marginalized members (21.9%),

addressing marketing imperfections (15.3%) and to increase farmer productive capacity (14.4%)

were the major reasons for establishing cooperatives (Figure 8). There were no statistically

significant differences between the CA and the A1 in terms of the reason why cooperatives had to

be formed.

Figure 8: Reason for forming cooperatives

22


Comparison between these findings and the reasons why individual members joined the

cooperative reveals a slight disjuncture between reasons why members join cooperatives and

reasons for establishment of the cooperative in the first place. The majority of the people joined in

order to increase their level of income or their production (56.3%) followed by those who joined

in order to improve the quality of their product (24%), increasing the bargaining power (6.8%) and

as a defence mechanism against adverse conditions (5.7%) were ranked third and fourth

respectively (Table 3). This disjuncture between the goals of the cooperatives and those of the

individual members is a potential source of inefficiency and may lead to what Ortmann & King

(2007) identified as control problems between the principals and the membership. Additionally,

most A1 cooperators had joined the cooperative in order to improve the quality of their produce

(47.8%) while those in the CA simply wanted to increase their production (75%). Thus, the reason

for establishing cooperatives seems generic, but the motives that eventually drive farmers into

joining the cooperative are diverse. This may indicate the reason why multi-purpose cooperatives

are more attractive to farmers that single purpose cooperatives.

Table 3: What was the main reason for joining Coop?

23


Historically, cooperatives in Africa were formed either by the colonial governments or later in the

1990s by NGOs and other development agents. This study found 64% of the respondents belong

to cooperatives that were founded or formed by NGOs or donor organization in the communal

areas followed by those that were formed by the government (20%). This was in stuck contrast to

cooperatives in the A1 model in which 97.8% of the respondents reported that their cooperative

was formed and driven by the local farmers or the cooperative members themselves (Table 4).

Table 4: Founders of cooperatives in Goromonzi


The government of Zimbabwe (GoZ) abandoned its socialist mantra in the early 1990s which

resulted in the desertion of their top-down control and support of the cooperatives (Musininga,

1988). However, our study reviewed that the Cooperative Societies Act(1996)s is the same one

A1 CA Total No. % No. % No. %

Increase production 33 35.9 75 75 108 56.3 Improve product or service quality 44 47.8 2 2 46 24 Increase bargaining power 0 0 13 13 13 6.8 Defence against adverse conditions 10 10.9 1 1 11 5.7 Lower operating costs 1 1.1 5 5 6 3.1 Bulk purchases 0 0 4 4 4 2.1 Obtain services otherwise unavailable 3 3.3 0 0 3 1.6 Cheap storage and transportation 1 1.1 0 0 1 0.5 Total 92 100 100 100 192 100

A1 CA Total

No. % No. % No. %

Political Party 1 1.1 0 0 1 0.5

Extension Officer 0 0 1 1 1 0.5

NGO 1 1.1 64 64 65 33.9

Local Authority 0 0 4 4 4 2.1

Local Political Leader 0 0 4 4 4 2.1

Local Farmers Or Coop Members 90 97.8 7 7 97 50.5

DDP (Gvt) 0 0 20 20 20 10.4

Total 92 100 100 100 192 100

Chi-square= 162.030 df=6 sig.= 0.000*

24

that is still in effect today, meaning that the cooperative movement is still firmly under the

government by an act of law (In-depth interviews, 2018). This has varying implications on the

newly formed cooperatives in the resettled areas, i.e. although they were formed and are driven by

the farmers themselves, they still have to operate within a framework in which ultimate power is

vested in the GoZ through the 1996 Act. The interviews also revealed that there have been two

attempts to revise the cooperative act, once in 2005 and more recently a draft act of 2017 was

proposed.

In the theory of peasant cooperatives, Chayanov highlights how the problem of differentiation in

the peasantry can affect the ability or potential of farmers to join a cooperative. In this study, we

found statistically significant differences in what was perceived to affect the chances of a

prospective member to join a cooperative. In the communal areas, socio-economic status (reported

by 56.6% of the cooperators), level of production (56%) and land ownership (42%) were the three

major factors that could affect a member’s interest in joining and also of being admitted into the

cooperative (Table 5).

Table 5: Drivers of chances of someone joining a Cooperative.


On the other hand, the A1 cooperators highlighted that only land/farm ownership status (98.9%)

might affect chances to join or to be admitted into a cooperative. Although a number of CA farmers

reported that political affiliation (14.1%) and level of education (28.3%) affected chances of

joining a cooperative, less than 3% reported this in the A1 sector. Although more research is

needed in this aspect, these results may indicate the fact that the founders of a movement will affect

the perception or the type of people it will attract.

Adding to the discussion on reasons or the motivations for joining cooperatives, the study sort to

understand whether the members had indeed enjoyed any benefit ever since joining the cooperative.

A1 CA Total Chi-square test No. % No. % No. % Sig. Df X2 value

Farm/Land ownership 91 98.9 42 42 133 69.3 .000* 1 72.914 Level of production 2 2.2 56 56 58 30.2 .000* 1 65.848 Socio-economic status 1 1.1 56 56.6 57 29.8 .000* 1 70.102 Political affiliation 0 0 14 14.1 14 7.3 .000* 1 14.039 Level of education 1 1.1 28 28.3 29 15.2 .000* 1 27.387

25

The most interesting result across the two settlement types is that approximately one fifth of the

cooperators highlighted that they had seen no difference (Table 6). This can be interpreted as

emanating from the differences between the reasons the cooperative was formed and the reason a

member had for joining that cooperative as discussed earlier. To close down on this gap, there is

need for cooperatives to carry out more training to conscientize their members on cooperative

goals and objectives.

Table 6: Benefits experienced after joining cooperative


However, of the 79.6% of the respondents that actually experienced a substantial improvement

after joining the cooperative, increased income (40.1%), better bargaining power (16.4%), access

to services otherwise unavailable (17.4%) and lower operating costs (12.5%) were ranked higher

respectively across both farming models (Table 6). This is an important finding since one of the

theoretical assumptions we put is the fact that cooperatives have the ability to answer the agrarian

question. Not only were cooperatives able to improve income and bargaining power, but they were

able to provide new services that were not available proving the ability of the community to

innovate. The CA cooperative was able to score higher in terms of improving income and

consolidating the bargaining power of the peasants which is ideal for fighting the negative effects

of the free market system. The A1 farmers on the other hand also enjoyed increased income

(24.3%) and lowered operating costs (25.7%), however, they most benefited from the ability to

access services that were otherwise unavailable in the area (37.1%). In this case, cooperatives are

feeling in a gap that the free market as well as government programs have failed to do and hence

validates Hayami Yujiro’s community-state-market framework.

A1 CA Total

No. % No. % No. % No difference 22 23.9 19 19 41 21.4 Increased Income 17 24.3 44 53.7 61 40.1 Better Bargaining Power 0 0 25 30.5 25 16.4 Access to Services otherwise Unavailable 26 37.1 0 0 26 17.1 Lower Operating Costs 18 25.7 1 1.2 19 12.5 Access to Input Markets 6 8.6 3 3.7 9 5.9 Access to Output Markets 2 2.9 8 9.8 10 6.6 Others 1 1.4 0 0 1 0.7 Total 70 100 81 100 151 100

26

5.3 Cooperative Management

The cooperative societies act has specific provisions that stipulate that all cooperative should have

a management committee. The efficiency of this committee depends on a number of variables such

as level of education; skills; internal and external flow, interpretation and assimilation of

information as well as the levels of trust. A number of cooperative movement criticscite, relative

to corporates professionals and well-trained managers, the inefficiency of management committee.

5.3.1 Flow of information in the cooperative

The proportion of farmers who had knowledge onsuch things as frequency of meetings for the

cooperative, being aware of the year the cooperative was established, the number of members (by

gender) in the cooperative as well as sources of funding averaged over 80% across the two

settlement models. This indicates that, to a greater extent, basic information was disseminated to

the members. However, such information as the cooperative objectives, mission and goals is

critical in uniting the people towards achieving set goals. Just over 56% of the respondents received

such information through training which means almost half of the other membership did not

formally receive and were actually unaware of this information. Given the fact that A1

cooperatives are relatively new, hardly 10years since formation, the fact that the proportion of

members who accessed information is approximately equal to that of CA can be commended.

Table 7: Access to information within the cooperative


Access to financial information on the other hand was extremely depressed as seen through those

who reported having knowledge of the amount of cooperative debt (69.3%), amount of money

paid to apex organizations (38%), annual balances of the reserve ratio (28.6%) and only 3.1% of

Does member have the following information about the cooperative?


Frequency of meetings 87 94.6 100 100 187 97.4 Year of establishment 89 96.3 97 97 186 96.7 Membership structures (by gender) 81 88 100 100 181 94.3 Sources of funding 86 93.5 76 76 162 84.4 Amount of cooperative debt 44 47.8 89 89 133 69.3 Goals and objectives 51 55.4 58 58 109 56.8 Total money paid to Apex organizations 11 12 62 62 73 38 Annual balances in the revenue fund 2 2.2 53 53 55 28.6 Price of shares 0 0 6 6 6 3.1

27

the people knew how much each share in their cooperative costs (Table 7). Therefore, it appears

as though general information such as the number of people in the cooperative is easier to get, but

finance related information is harder to get within both CA and A1 cooperatives.

5.3.2 An appraisal of the management committees

The management committee is one of the mandatory structures that should exist in any cooperative.

As we highlighted in the discussion in The agrarian question” section, gender participation in the

cooperative is of great importance. Overall, for every 5 female members in a management

committee, there were 6 male members (or 45.5% of the members in the committee). In the

communal areas, the ratio was even higher for women (5:4 or 59% of the committee members), as

compared to the A1 sector (5:9 or 30.8% of the members) (Figure 9). which we argue is

significantly higher than in the private corporate sector (see Table 1). The lower number of women

in the A1 cooperative can be explained by the fact that acceptance into the cooperative was to a

larger extent dependent on land ownership (see Table 5), and also that the land reform targeted to

allocate only 20% of the land to women (19.5% as reported inSMAIAS [2015] and 24% in Utete

[2003]). Thus,more women are taking part in the movement than they would in a government or

private sector program. This suggest that, when this cooperative grows, women, who are a

significant part of the management are capacitated. This illustrates how the cooperative model can

answer the gender part of the contemporary agrarian question.

Figure 9: Membership of cooperative committees and perception of level of women integration

in cooperative management committees.


28

To further support our argument, the study collected opinions of cooperative members in terms of

how they felt about women integration within the cooperative structures and the cooperative as a

whole. Approximately 63.6% reported that the cooperative had integrated women (integrated and

well-integrated), 31.7% reported that there was no significant difference and only 3.7% of them

clearly argued that women were not well integrated into the cooperative.

Going deeper into understanding the performance, it appeared as though co-operators had low

confidence in the management committee as far as important aspects of the management process

such as professionalism, good governance, dynamism and mutual trust wereconcerned (Figure 10).

Interestingly, a higher ranking of commitment, no political affiliation, self-reliance and energy

were recorded, thus we argue that the low confidence in terms of professionalism and good

governance can be linked to incompetence, which is mainly caused by the lack of agricultural

training (see discussion in section 5.2).

Figure 10: Ranking of management by the cooperative members


The frequency of cooperative meetings together withthe level of participation of the cooperative

members is indicative of the health of the management committee. The more the number of

meetings, the more the management is able to report and spread information to its members as well

as to get feedback. Meetings are crucial in order to minimize free-rider and control problems.

29

Overall, an average of 10 meetings were held,more meetings were recorded in the CA (13/annum)

than in the A1 (7/annum or bi-monthly) (Figure 11). There is need for further comparative research

in terms of how these rates compare with those in the rest of Africa and the world. As expected,

more cooperators in the A1 (92.4%) than in the CA (25%) agreed that the number of meetings held

was not enough and more meetings should be done. However, it is critical to note that the outcomes

of meetings depend on the structure and the resolutions made by the people who actually attend

the meeting. Although the study could not get a comment on whether cooperatives were following

strict quorum principles when conducting meetings, we were able to establish that each individual

member attended, on average 59% of these meetings (Figure 11). Thus, using an average of 10

meetings per annum, members were able to attend at least six of them, or in other words, if the

cooperative by-laws stipulate that meetings would be held every month, each member would only

attend every other meeting. This has serious implications for the success of the cooperative

especially the newly formed ones in which members would attend, on average 4 meetings per year.

Thus, managers need to work extra hard in sending information on time and announcing the

schedule of the meetings.

30

Figure 11: Frequency of meetings per annum and individual member attendance rates (%)


Ishida (2003) highlighted the existence of mutual trust and mutual suspicion in the management

echelons of the Japanese cooperative movement and how this suspicion was rooted in the

withholding of information especially in the finance department. Approximately 47.1% of the

people interviewed said that they were aware of at least one case of corruption that had occurred

in the cooperative. Sadly, more cases, though not statistically significant, were reported in the new

established A1 (50.5%) cooperatives than in the CA (44%). FGD data pointed to some members

of the cooperatives using political lines to justify their looting of cooperative resources (fertilizer

in that particular case). However, members who took part in the same FGD pointed out that the

use of politics was a thing of the past in light of the new dispensation. At this moment, we learned

that the overall political rot at national level had found its way into household levels as those

related to the then ruling echelons abused their power and privilege and amassed wealth and

resources from the people. FGD participants were encouraged to speak out if they saw any corrupt

activities by the chairman of an apex organization who stressed that political demi-gods were a

thing of the past and even chiefs can be held accountable. Results revealed that the majority of

such cases were resolved within cooperative structures in the A1 sector (60.9%) while nothing was

done to the remainder (39.1%) of the cases (Table 8). Interestingly, cooperatives in the CA reported

most of the corruption cases to the police (75%).

Table 8: Management’s handling of corruption cases

31


The need to settle inter-cooperative issues internally can be viewed or justified as a necessary evil

in order to preserve peace and conflict within both the cooperative and the community. however,

failure to effectively recover debts from members is detrimental to cooperatives.From the data

obtained from focus group discussions, it emerged that this was indeed the biggest challenges that

the cooperative movement was facing. Additionally, the cooperative, as a social organization

whose clients are also members, had limited punitive debt collection measuresin case of defaulting.

Holding the differences in by-laws constant across all cooperatives, rarely were cases reported to

the police (3.1%), and in the majority of the time, nothing (60.9%) was done about the members.

They were just left with the debts and the society hoped eventually the members would pay back.

Sometimes the debts were completely written off as bad debts (18.8%) while a number of cases

had resulted in the confiscation of member’s assets (17.2%). The were statistically significant

differences between the old and the new cooperative movements, with the former mainly doing

nothing (52%) or confiscating assets (33%). Approximately 70% of the A1 farmers reported that

nothing is done in terms of trying to recover unpaid cooperative debts or in worse cases they are

written off as bad debts (28.3%). Therefore, the A1 cooperative movement potentially loses 100%

of its debts which is extremely detrimental to the sustainability of the cooperative. Better

mechanisms need to be put in place in this regard.

Table 9: Methods used when trying to recover cooperative debts


No corruption cases 45 49.5 56 56 101 52.9 Reported to police 0 0 33 75 33 36.7 Within Coop structure 28 60.9 8 18.2 36 40 Nothing 18 39.1 3 6.8 21 23.3

Corruption cases 46 50.5 44 44 90 47.1 Total 92 100 100 100 191 100

32


What was not covered in the study was the contents of the individual cooperative by-laws that, as

provided by the Cooperative Societies act (1996), is supposed to have specifications of how

members will be prosecuted if suspected of misconduct or corruption. But to what level do

cooperative members have confidence in their management committee in terms of upholding the

law? The data obtained suggested that significant numbers of cooperators especially in the A1

(82.6%) were confident that their management committee had acceptable knowledge of the

cooperative societies law which guides their activities. For the CA, approx. 43% reported that they

were sure that the committees understood the act/law. In the same instance, the majority of the

cooperative members believed that their committees were either neutral (41.1%) or did not take

seriously (33.9%) the auditing of cooperative accounting books at the end of the financial year

(Table 10). This result is not surprising, given the fact that just over half (55.7%, see section 5.1)

of the members of the cooperative had attained formal education up to primary level, and the fact

that they virtually had received no agricultural training. However, it shows that there is a huge

potential for the movement if more and more educational programs or support are done by the

movement.

Table 10: Running of cooperatives and auditing of accounting books.

A1 CA Total

No. % No. % No. % Report to police 1 1.1 5 5 6 3.1 Nothing 65 70.7 52 52 117 60.9 Confiscate assets 0 0 33 33 33 17.2 Write them off as bad debts 26 28.3 10 10 36 18.8 Total 92 100 100 100 192 100

33


Cooperators listed a number of issues that they thought were mostly affecting their management

committees. Interestingly, there was a statistically significant difference between problems

identified in the CA and problems identified in the A1. Three major issues in the A1 sector were

power relations (52.2%), low mutual trust (17.4%) and inadequate number of meetings (14.1%).

This meant that the management committee had a lot of characters that wanted authority, yet they

didn’t not trust each other and the problems were exacerbated by the fact that they did not meet

often enough to discuss these problems (Table 11). The problems identified in the CA were more

varied, ranging from quorum issues (28%), low mutual trust (16%), methods of committee member

selection (14%) and low levels of skills and qualification (13%).

Table 11: Concerns raised by co-operators with regards to the efficiency of managers


Given the above discussion, it only seems natural for the A1 sector (30.4%), with ‘power

relations’ issues to be the least that think cooperatives should be headed and run by outsiders

who are trained and academically competent. On the other hand, the more experienced co-

operators in the CA (56%) seemed to warm up to the idea of incorporating more skilled and

professionals into the cooperative structures (


Aware of Coop law 76 82.6 43 43 119 62

Is auditing of accounting books taken seriously by management?

Larger extent 39 42.4 9 9 48 25 Neutral 8 8.7 71 71 79 41.1 Lesser extent 45 48.9 20 20 65 33.9 Total 92 100 100 100 192 100

A1 CA Total

No. % No. % No. % Quorum issues 2 2.2 28 28 30 15.6 Low qualifications 6 6.5 13 13 19 9.9 Method of selection 6 6.5 14 14 20 10.4 Corruption 1 1.1 9 9 10 5.2 Power relations 48 52.2 1 1 49 25.5 Incompetence 0 0 9 9 9 4.7 Low mutual trust 16 17.4 16 16 32 16.7 Inadequate meetings 13 14.1 10 10 23 12 Total 92 100 100 100 192 100

34

Table 12). On the other hand, this maybe indicative of the fact that CA cooperatives, mostly

founded by professionals from NGOs and government, are more open to the idea of depending

more on external resources than A1s.

Table 12: Proportions of farmers who believed that cooperatives should be managed by

outsiders who have better academic and professional qualifications.


More central to the theoretical debate given in earlier sections of this article are issues of the role

or the relationships that have been forged between other players in the agricultural and non-

agricultural sectors of the economy of Zimbabwe. We sort out to understand the strength of these

relations between cooperatives with the following sectors.

Table 13: The strength of relations between cooperative and other sub-sectors

35


The critical thing to learn from Table 13 is the fact that A1 cooperatives had good relations with

government institutions (67.4%) and corporate/private companies (41.3%) while co-operators in

the CA reported that they had the strongest ties with the NGOs (94%) and government institutions

(83%). This has serious implications to the argument pushed in this article (Table 13). These results

seem to support Hayami Yujiro’s ‘Community-State-Market’ model in which these three entities

mutually depend on each other in a cycle of backward and forward feedback. Thus, the old

cooperative movement, formed basically by the government or by development agents seems to

neglect the role of the private sector while the new cooperative movement witnessed in the newly

resettled areas is grounded with the state and the markets as well as with the international

community (NGOs and donors). This sits perfectly with the need to reduce binary or polarized

view of development.

A1 CA Total

No % No % No % Other agric cooperatives 5 5.4 21 21.0 26 13.5 Other general coops 8 8.7 21 21.0 29 15.1 Corporates or private companies 38 41.3 35 35.0 73 38.0 Government institutions 62 67.4 83 83.0 145 75.5 International donors or NGOs 22 23.9 94 94.0 116 60.4 Other non-member farmers 13 14.1 12 12.0 25 13.0

36

6. Conclusion

The article has discussed the unfortunate polarization within the development discourse and how

these have led to binaries in scholarly work in this respect. Free markets as well as the state-led

approaches have failed to lift under-developed rural areas in the global south, the need to move

away from this polarized view of the world and come up with third way type of development

models is nigh. We made two arguments, firstly, community involvement has always been the

missing piece, and when models sought to include the community as seen in the past two decades

or so,the community has often been highly disorganized. Secondly, we argue that in order to have

an organized community, better placed to play its role in a tri-pronged development framework,

the people will need to organize themselves into cooperatives. These cooperatives are dissimilar

to the British-Indian type which are controlled by a hubris government or NGO, but these should

take a bottom-up form and has the greatest potential of changing the rural areas and competing

with local companies and other intermediaries on the open market.

The Zimbabwean case study highlighted various issues in management of cooperatives and how

these issues were mainly caused by the fact that management committees had basic education and

extremely low agricultural training. Thus, a deliberate government policy to reduce its direct

contact in the running of day to day business of cooperatives but increase training and capacity

building will improve cooperative management, and hence increase the social organization of rural

cooperatives. Just as in the study by Wedig & Weigratz (2018) in Uganda, we also found that there

is a new wave of cooperatives in Zimbabwe. These are cooperatives in the resettled areas, and they

have a number of statistically significant differences between the old CA cooperatives in the sense

that they seem to be doing well in the context of limited government or private-sector support,

unconducive economic environment as well as an old repressive legislative environment. It is a

fact that the new wave also has number of management challenges such as low transparency, power

relation issues, low professionalism and inability to efficiently collect debts. However, they have

the potential to revive the cooperative movement, solve contradictions brought about by the free-

markets and hence resolve the agrarian questions as shown through improved production and

income levels; women integration and access to services otherwise unavailable. Furthermore, in

our efforts to find a third way, the presented evidence that suggest that the new wave can foster

alliances with the private sector as well as the government since the new cooperative have a higher

level of autonomous independence.Future research should peruse the Cooperative Societies Act

37

(1996) and evaluate how it specifically hinders or reduce the growth and success of the

contemporary cooperative movement.

38

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