Through information on orchard health, growing season conditions, regulatory updates, compliance expectations, and world almond markets, Blue Diamond helps growers make better decisions in a complex production and marketing environment. That is Principle 5 in a very practical form. Principle 5 reminds us that education, training, and information have never been merely an add on or a newsletter function. They have been at the cooperative movement’s core since the Principles were first formulated. Early cooperators believed education was central to improving people’s lives and recognized a responsibility to help educate their members and their families, even setting aside part of their cooperative’s surplus for education. That history helps explain why cooperatives have long viewed education as part of their responsibility to members, not simply as a service when time allows. The guidance also distinguishes education, training and information: education builds understanding of cooperative values and principles; training develops practical skills for grower-members, employees, managers and directors; and information helps members produce more effectively while helping the broader public understand the nature and benefits of cooperation. Harvest time also gives us a natural bridge to Principle 3: Members’ Economic Participation. Harvest is when this principle becomes actionable. When growers deliver almonds to their cooperative, they are not simply “using a marketing outlet.” They are participating in a use-based
organization they own, and one in which they elect directors to represent them — more on ownership and governance in later articles. Cooperative participation begins with use, but it does not end there. Principle 3 also speaks to member capital, democratic control of that capital, the allocation of profits, and how members benefit in proportion to their transactions with the cooperative. In other words, your almond crop is more than product moving through a supply chain. At Blue Diamond , your crop activates and demonstrates the grower-member relationship: use, ownership, investment, benefit and collective responsibilities. The Cooperative Principles are not just a graphic to display in our lobbies, though we should display them. They are how cooperative values are lived and put into action. And in this season, as growers prepare for harvest and Blue Diamond prepares to turn individual production into collective market strength, the Principles offer a useful lens for understanding the value of collective action.
Dr. Keri Jacobs, Executive Director,
Graduate Institute of Cooperative Leadership, and Partridge Chair in Cooperative Leadership, University of Missouri
Dr. Keri L. Jacobs is Executive Director of the Graduate Institute of Cooperative Leadership (GICL), associate professor of agricultural and applied economics, and Partridge Chair in Cooperative Leadership at the University of Missouri. She works with cooperative CEOs, management teams, and boards across the agricultural sector on governance, financial oversight, and the board’s role in strategy development. Through GICL, she designs and facilitates director and leadership development programs and regularly engages with cooperative boards on complex organizational issues. Her research and outreach are grounded in sustained collaboration with cooperatives and industry partners and focus on how collective action and cooperative structures can strengthen producers’ position within agricultural supply chains. Dr. Jacobs serves on the NCBA CLUSA Cooperative Economics Council and the Nationwide Board Council and is North Central Director for the Extension Section of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association. Raised on her family’s hog and row-crop farm in eastern Iowa, she holds a B.A. in economics from Coe College and a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from North Carolina State University.
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JULY–AUGUST 2026
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