THE COOPERATIVE EDGE
Harvesting Choice, Voice and Control Last issue, we began harvesting the Cooperative Principles through the eyes of Blue Diamond grower-owners. If you missed it, you have some homework to do. I also left you with a promise: we would return to Principle 1: Voluntary and Open Membership . Here we are. A dairy farmer who served on the board of his marketing cooperative once asked me whether his co-op was really following Principle 1. At the time, his cooperative was not accepting new members because it simply did not have capacity for more milk. How, he asked, could membership be called “open” if the door was temporarily closed? It is a fair question — one I get often — and a reminder, even to me, that the Cooperative Principles are guidelines for operating real businesses, not rigid rules to be interpreted literally. “Open” does not mean a cooperative must accept members it cannot responsibly serve. And “voluntary” does not mean membership comes without obligations. That brings us to Blue Diamond. Growers voluntarily choose cooperative membership, but that choice comes with commitment. At first, that can sound contradictory. But a marketing cooperative cannot build processing capacity, develop markets, make customer commitments, or plan for the future if its supply is entirely unpredictable. The commitment is part of what makes collective marketing possible. Principle 1 is about the freedom to choose membership while accepting the responsibilities that come with that choice. Which leads naturally to Principle 2: Democratic Member Control . Once growers commit their crop, capital, and trust to a cooperative, who directs it? In a cooperative, the answer ultimately comes back to the members. Blue Diamond grower-owners elect directors from among the membership to represent them in governing the cooperative, alongside at-large directors who carry the same responsibilities inside the boardroom. But Principle 2 is about more than voting. We commonly say that a cooperative is an extension of its members’ farms. Blue Diamond is an extension of its grower-owners and their orchards, reaching beyond their farm gate into processing, products, markets and customers. Grower-directors govern that extension, making consequential decisions about strategy, risk and the long-term economic position of members. Voting for directors is therefore much more than a cooperative tradition. It is one of the primary ways you exercise your control over an enterprise tasked with carrying your collective interests far beyond your orchards. And if Blue Diamond is an extension of its grower-owners, then Principle 4: Autonomy and Independence asks an important question: Who ultimately controls that extension ? Principle 4 sounds abstract, but its purpose is quite practical. No successful cooperative operates in isolation. Blue Diamond works with customers, financial institutions, regulators, suppliers and many other organizations. Autonomy does not require avoiding those relationships. It means those relationships should not displace the cooperative’s ability to remain governed by and operated for the benefit of its members. At the end of the day, decisions must remain accountable to the cooperative’s member-governed purpose and to the growers who own it.
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ALMOND FACTS
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