Report of the Workshop on National and International Experiences of Cooperatives in Agriculture

Jaya Mehta A six day workshop on national and international experiences of cooperatives in agriculture was organized in Delhi from 18th March to 23rd March 2013. The workshop was a follow up of the study on 'agrarian crisis', taken up by the Joshi-Adhikari Institute of Social Studies (JAISS) in 2009. Under that study, a primary survey was conducted delineating the production and marketing patterns of 1000 marginal farmers spread across 8 states 30 districts 128 villages. The main conclusion of the study was that marginal farmers, who account for 70 percent of total agricultural holdings, need to pool their land and labour together to form collectives. This would not only enable viable farm practice but will also create possibilities of voluntary and respectable shift of surplus labour to related non-farm activities. More importantly, what is now the vulnerable section of the farm community will emerge as a political force if it has a collective economic base. The farmers' collectives could prevent transfer of land from agriculture to non-agricultural use, could promote a land use pattern ensuring food security and could adopt sustainable farm practices with appropriate technology. These collectives could play a lead role in changing the production relations within agriculture and outside it. The purpose of the workshop was to discuss in detail the possibility of left forces taking up cooperative movement as a priority political agenda. The workshop was organized by Joshi-Adhikari Institute of Social Studies (JAISS) and supported by Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), Action Aid, Rosa Luxembourg Stiftung, Popular Education and Action Centre (PEACE) and Agrarian South. The Director of the institute Prof. Ajay Patnaik welcomed the guests and invited Shri S. P. Shukla to introduce the background of the workshop. Chairperson of Centre for Policy Analysis Shri S.P. Shukla has been the driving force behind the study of agrarian crisis. He introduced the seminar pointing out that during the course of this study, a number of academics and ground level activists showed interest in reviving the agenda of production cooperatives to counter the corporate onslaught facilitated by the neoliberal policy frame. In response to this interest, Joshi-Adhikari Institute took the initiative of organising an extensive interaction among activists, academics and international experts, who could discuss a) agrarian situation in the country, b) experience of cooperative movement in the country and c) experiences of cooperative movement in socialist countries and other developing countries. Delegates were invited from Kisan Sabhas of CPI, CPI (M), CPI (ML) and Forward Block. In addition, senior activists working with independent groups and researchers on agrarian issues from different academic institutes were also invited. Among the participants there
1

were many who had direct experience with the cooperatives functioning in the country. International experts were invited from China, Vietnam, Nepal (Asia), Spain (Europe), Ethiopia, Tanzania, and South Africa (Africa), Cuba and Venezuela (South America). The workshop began with veteran Communist leader Comrade A. B. Bardhan's inaugural remarks and Professor Prabhat Patnaik's keynote address on theoretical question of necessity of cooperative for an alternative development strategy. Comrade Bardhan, in his inaugural remarks, emphasized the centrality of the question of agriculture, agrarian relations and land in India's development in coming years. Pointing at the predominance of small and marginal farmers in rural India and the impasse that they have reached with respect to requirements such as modern technology, water and fertilizer, he said the solution has to be found in terms of effective and sustainable cooperation among them. He said, 'In this respect we have to learn from the experiences of other countries about which our foreign guests will talk and also from our own grass root activists, who have come from far off villages to attend this workshop'. In his keynote address, prominent left ideologue and economist Professor Prabhat Patnaik began with a theoretical and historical account of role petty bourgeoisie in capitalist development. Explaining the concept of primitive accumulation of capital in the development of capitalism, Professor Patnaik pointed out that the process of primitive accumulation, which entails dispossession of petty producers and peasantry, has been politically kept in check by the capitalist state itself. Historically, petty producers have acted as social props for the big capital. However, in the neo-liberal phase, the political support of the state to petty producers and peasants has been withdrawn - leading to a situation where big capital is destroying its own social props. This has created the historical possibility of worker-peasant alliance for a social transformation. Therefore, it is very important that while envisioning an alternative development strategy, we incorporate defense and protection for myriads of petty producers, who are currently under a devastating attack in neo-liberal capitalism. However, petty producers or peasants with individual small holdings cannot be ensured protection for an indefinite period. They have to be persuaded to pool their land and labour together. In this manner, the technological advantage of economies of scale can be availed by small farmers and very importantly the surplus labour scattered in individual farm households can be productively engaged in capital formation and agro-processing activities. Professor Patnaik concluded his speech with the statement that the institution of cooperative would be a harbinger for ensuring food security, employment to surplus labour and protection of the petty capital. It would play an extremely important role in building an alternative development strategy which would ultimately usher in a socialist transformation.
2

The session was open to all and was attended by many important personalities, who could not spare the time to come for all seven days. Com. Abelardo Cueto, Ambassador of Cuba, Com. Eduardo Iglesias Quintana, Minister Secretary from Cuban Embassy,CPI General Secretary Com. S. Sudhakar Reddy, All India Kisan Sabha President Com. Prabodh Panda, AIKS General Secretary Com. Atul Kumar Anjaan, General Secretary of All India Peace and Solidarity Organisation Comrade Pallab Sengupta, Anil Chowdhury from PEACE, Ashok Rao from All India Power Engineers Federation, Sandeep Chachra from Action Aid, Subhash Gatade from New Socialist Initiative, Dhruv Narayan from Daanish Books took time out to attend the session and joined the discussion. Agrarian Scene in Indian Economy In the next session, the 'agrarian scene in contemporary India' along with a historical perspective was discussed by Prof. K.B. Saxena (Professor at Council for Social Development, Delhi), Prof. Pravin Jha (Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi), Prof. Vikas Rawal (Professor,Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi) and Dr. Jaya Mehta (Economist, Joshi-Adhikari Institute of Social Studies, Delhi). Prof. Pravin Jha pointed at the impasse in resolution of agrarian question as visualized in the classical frame. The share of labour force in agriculture cannot be transferred to other sectors in the present scenario. To this, Dr. Jaya Mehta added that a satisfactory resolution to agrarian question is not available in the capitalist framework and that is precisely the reason why this workshop had been organized. There is a need to discuss and plan how labour can intervene effectively in the neoliberal capitalist accumulation process and delineate an alternative development trajectory. Prof. Praveen Jha insisted on the centrality of land and said that the agenda of completing the land reforms should be taken with utmost sincerity. However, land reforms must not be divorced from the broad macro-economic policy frame. Prof. K. B. Saxena outlined the history of land relations during pre-colonial, colonial and post colonial period. He mentioned the community control of agrarian system in pre colonial times, described how land was codified by the British and discussed the transfer of land ownership from community to the state. He then discussed the question of eminent domain and dwelt upon the land acquisition bill and the flaws in the present form of the bill. Dr. Vikas Rawal referred to the empirical study on agrarian structure taken up by him and his colleagues. He pointed out that how small the incomes of marginal farmers were across the country and also pointed towards rural inequalities and increasing concentration of resource base in rural
3

areas. The discussion that followed the session on agrarian scene touched upon various aspects. The discussion covered instances of land grabbing and resistance against it, farmers' suicides, subsidy cuts, terms of trade between agriculture and industry, and distribution of agricultural prosperity within rural sector. The day ended with revolutionary songs presented by the Delhi unit of Indian Peoples' Theatre Association. The choir included Manish Shrivastava, Vinod Koshti, Varsha Anand, Rajneesh Shrivastava, Shruti Dube, Pritpal Singh and others. The young artists selected songs which described the pathos of farmers and also songs which honored peasant struggles. An exhibition was also displayed showing the works of master artists like Chittoprasad, Somnath Hore, JainulAbideen, Debabrata Mukhopadhyay and others depicting the Bengal famine and Kolhapur famine of forties. Some other paintings depicted the strength of peasants. who joined Tebhaga and Telangana movements. The discussion on land relations was followed by Shri Suhas Paranjape giving a narrative on dynamics of water use and distribution and its interface with land relations.Dr. Paranjape is an engineer cum activist from Mumbai and a well-known scholar on water issues, Describing how water is a qualitatively different resource because it is dynamic, asymmetric and part of commons, he stated that the normal concepts of property are not applicable in the case of water. Capitalist system forces the property relations on water resources creating many anomalies and corresponding conflicts. He concluded by saying that capitalism is unable to offer any desirable solution. Cooperation in water, which is a common resource, comes more naturally than cooperation in land, which is immovable and traditionally an individual resource base. Therefore, a movement for equitable access to water is extremely important. Historian Prof. Tripta Wahi (Delhi) supplemented this narrative by pointing out how historically access to water has been denied to the majority people on the basis of caste and other discriminatory norms. After covering water and land relations, general agrarian scene and economics of small and big farms, the discussion in the workshop moved on to the experiences of cooperative movement in the country. Indian Experiences on Agricultural Cooperatives The genesis and growth of formal cooperative movement was discussed by Dr. Veena Nabar. Dr. Nabar played an important role as Chief Coordinator of high Powered Committee on Cooperatives,
4

Government of India. She gave a chronological account of cooperative laws - from the first cooperative law of 1904 to the recommendations of high powered committee which led to the 97 th amendment in the Constitution. Dr. Nabar pointed out that State partnership in cooperatives was an essential part of development of cooperative structure in post independence period. The bureaucratic control on the functioning of cooperatives has been excessive. The constitutional amendment would give more independence to cooperatives. Prof. Biswa Swarup Misra from Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar, Odisha discussed the agricultural credit cooperative network structure and the consequences of proposed delayering of Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies or PACS. Mentioning Vaidyanathan committee and Bakshi committee recommendations he pointed out that PACS are to become banking correspondents of central cooperative banks. They will not be disbursing credit. This will further distance the farmers from credit disbursement mechanism. The two technical sessions generated a great deal of interest among the participants. Many of them had first hand experience with the working of PACS and were familiar with the recommendations of various committees and recent development in rules and regulation. It was generally the opinion that reducing the role of state will weaken the cooperative sector. Bakshi committee recommendations will ultimately lead to abolition of PACS network, which will be a great loss to the farmers. An expert of agricultural issues Comrade K. Prekash Babu from Kerala also raised the question of centre encroaching on state jurisdiction because cooperative is a state subject. In the next session, National Secretary General of All India Forward Bloc (AIFB) Comrade Debabrata Biswas addressed the gathering. He said cooperative movement is a democratic movement. Now is the time when left leaders should take on this agenda on a priority basis. Within the cooperative movement, he argued for strengthening PACS which is the right machinery at ground level for lending, distribution and collection. The general discussion on cooperative laws, cooperative structure and cooperative movement was followed by analysis of specific cases of cooperation and cooperative structures. Former Director of Kudumbashree mission in Kerala and currently working with National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), Dr. Sarada Muraleedharan (Delhi) described the collective farming by women farmers in Kerala, Dr. Rukmini Rao (Hyderabad) talked of similar experiment by women farmers in Andhra Pradesh, Com. Krishna Prasad (All India Kisan Sabha) talked about the meat cooperative in Kerala, Dr. Sulabha Bramhe (Pune) discussed the sugar cooperatives of Maharashtra and Prof. Tara Nayar (Anand, Gujarat) analysed the world famous Amul cooperative. Known documentary film maker Sehjo Singh showed excerpts from her film "Sona-Maati" which narrated the story of a Rajasthani woman's struggle for her land rights. Comrade Sudhakar reddy took time out to attend this session.
5

Kudumbashree Mission in Kerala is based on the interface of community and government initiative. Its canvas is wide. Four million women from the entire state of Kerala are members of this mission. Around two lakh women are engaged in collective farming. They grow banana, vegetables, tubers and also paddy. The land cultivated by them is mostly leased land and in this way a considerable portion of fallow land in the state has been brought under cultivation. The confidence and energy generated among women by Kudumbashree Mission is exceptional. However, similar group farming activity taken up by the women in Andhra Pradesh could not be sustained. The group farming in Andhra was, of course, on a much smaller scale and supported by the NGO Deccan Development Society. Rukmini Rao from Gramya Organisation stressed that government policy support is crucial for ensuring effectiveness and sustainability of such programmes. Tracing the history of sugar cooperatives in Maharashtra, senior economist Dr. Sulabha Bramhe described the basic principles on which Pravara Cooperative was set up. The sugar cooperative movement was however, hijacked by the vested interests, who took control of the entire economic and political space. The sugar barons who have emerged from the cooperative sector are now lobbying for implementation of Rangrajan committee recommendations. This will remove all controls from sugar industry and will enable private takeover of the cooperative sector. Participants from Maharashtra emphatically stated that private takeover of the sugar cooperative sector should be resisted. For an effective resistance movement it is necessary that small peasants, agricultural workers and sugar factory workers all come together. It is equally necessary to reorganize the cooperatives, get them out of the clutches of political and economic vested interests. Prof. Tara Nair from Institute of Rural Management, Anand, Gujarat (IRMA) analysed the success story of Amul and NDDB. What began as a small union of milk producers in Kaira district in Gujarat has now spread into a countrywide network with 15 million dairy farmers forming 150,000 primary producer societies. The success of Anand pattern is to be attributed to a very creative leadership at top and professional middle level management. Amul, in particular, has registered its presence in the corporate world in big way. However the three tier structure of NDDB entails no participatory role for millions of primary producers and is so designed as to sever off all links between producers and final consumers. The session on dairy cooperative generated heated response from the participants. The discussion ranged from fixing of milk price and specific breeds of cows to unfair practices at lower level and marginalization of small producers in primary societies. In the end, Shyam Benegal's film 'Manthan'
6

was shown. The discussion on Indian cooperative experience ended with Comrade Viju Krishnan (All India Kisan Sabha) underscoring the need to give a mass character to the discussion on cooperative and Prof. Dinesh Abrol establishing a link between technology and cooperatives. The institutional structure of cooperatives would enable a choice of technology which is desirable from the point of view of entire human civilization. This is so because such a structure is not driven by the profit motive and is therefore free of the dictatorship of market. Prof. Dinesh Abrol, however, pointed at another aspect of the interface between technology and co-operation. Technology can fragment the producers engaged in particular activities and technology can also join them by building bridges. He talked of simple cooperation and complex cooperation and gave an illustration from leather industry where technological innovation could build a bridge between flayers and tanners. The participants were particularly interested in role of technology in strengthening the cooperative movement and invited Prof. Abrol to visit their villages and talk to people about technology which does not follow the dictates of capitalist markets. International experiences of agricultural cooperatives China The discussion on international experiences with cooperatives rightly began with a detailed analysis of cooperative movement in China. The discussion was spearheaded by eminent economist Prof. Utsa Patnaik. Her talk was followed by Dr. Sriram Natrajan from Bangkok and Prof. Li Xiande from China. The cooperative movement in a socialist country has to be differentiated from that in a capitalist country. In a socialist country, individual farmers are persuaded to pool their resources together not just to empower them economically, politically and socially. Rather, it is the first step towards making a transition to socialized ownership of resource base. It is the beginning of introducing the petty producers to an alternative world view to a socialist world view. In China, the system of cooperative production in agriculture was put in place in 1950s after implementing a radical land reform programme. It began with setting up mutual aid teams, which progressed to primary agricultural cooperatives and advanced agricultural cooperatives and finally culminated into formation of peoples communes. Professor Patnaik stressed that in a labour surplus economy like China and India, apart from social and moral justification the institution of
7

cooperative also has a sound economic rationale. Cooperation is mandatory for rapid development of productive forces and desired capital formation. In this context she explained the concept of costless capital formation. Talking about communes which she personally visited in China, she said that the egalitarian thrust ingrained in the system was wonderful. The system was reversed not because it was not working but because political forces developed within the party which countered the socialist ideology. Dr. Sriram Natrajan questioned the hypothesis put forward by western scholars that the dramatic increase in agricultural incomes observed in 1980s was due to the institutional reforms introduced in 1978. Dr. Natarajan argued that the increase in incomes was the result of enormous capital formation carried out by labour mobilized in communes during 60s and 70s. In addition, advanced seed varieties had reached the farmers and theses developments combined with the fact that state increased the agricultural prices dramatically to give incentive to individual farmers after the reforms. Prof. Li Xiande from Institute of Agricultural Economics and Development, (China) gave an overview of the current agrarian scene in China and also narrated how the reforms initiated in 1978 have progressed further. Land was allotted to individual households for longer and longer period and now a vibrant land market has emerged in China. Professor Xiande emphasized the pressure of population on land, small farm size, inability of farmers to cope with aggressive markets controlled by agribusiness, and large scale migration of rural workforce to urban areas He then described the second wave of agricultural cooperatives formalized through various enactments after year 2000. These cooperatives are different than the movement in 1950s. From the description given, the cooperatives only provide input and marketing possibilities. They have their own investment and expansion plans and .aspire to become commercial entities as in any capitalist economy. Vietnam Vietnam followed Chinese trajectory in changing land relations and corresponding cooperative movement. In the workshop also, presentation of Vietnam followed the Chinese session. Mr. Tuan Anh Ngo - a young scholar from Vietnam, presented the paper which was jointly written with his senior Dr. Dung Anh Nguyen. The paper began with underlining the role of legendary Ho Chi Minh and his visionary approach towards the role of cooperatives in advancing the democratic aims of Vietnamese freedom. History took another turn. The collectivisation of agricultural land undertaken during 60s and 70s was undone in mid-1980s. Like China, Vietnam also gave individual household
8

responsibility for farming and consolidated private control over land. As in China, in Vietnam too, a thriving land market has evolved. The market oriented shift changed the character of cooperative to service cooperatives. The paper discussed the different structural forms which have among new cooperatives, coverage of cooperative network and achievements in terms of production and export growth. The session on Vietnam was attended by the Vietnamese Ambassador Mr. Nguyen Thanh TAN and the second secretary Mr. Le Kien. Tuan Anh Ngo also showed a video clip of historical importance in which Ho chi Minh was shown visiting the cooperatives in Vietnam. The session was chaired by National Secretary of Communist Party of India Comrade Amarjeet Kaur. Spain The next session was on the cooperative movement in Spain. Spain is part of European Union and one of the countries, worst affected by the financial crisis of 2008. Ms. Eva Torremocha, an activist for organic farming gave an interesting account of how the institution of cooperative has been completely hijacked by the capitalist forces and how as part European Union Spain has little freedom to formulate independent laws. She explained that cooperatives in Spain are not people centric socially useful institutions. They are profit making business conglomerates. The laws related to cooperatives have only consolidated this role of profitability and efficiency. The arable land in Spain is divided between minifundas (small farms) and latifundas (big farms). Eighty percent of the funds under Common Agricultural Policy of EU go to latifundas. Eva insisted that the situation can be corrected only by small farmers and other rural poor households de-linking themselves from the existing structure. After Spain there were three presentations from the African continent. The countries discussed were; Ethiopia, Tanzania and South Africa. Three countries have different histories. Ethiopia was never colonised, Tanzania was liberated in 60s and had the dynamic leadership of Julius Nyerere. South Africa has had the longest apartheid rule. When liberated in 1994, the world expected it to lead the entire African continent towards justice, peace and equality. Ethiopia Prof. Subodh Malakar, Deputy Director of JAISS and an expert on agrarian transformation in Ethiopia spoke next. The basic premise of his analysis was that change in State power impacts the patterns of land relationship. Right from the times of Solomons Empire to the rule of Haile Selassie, the land relations in Ethopia can be described as feudo-monarchic relations. Ultimately, in
9

1974, people of Ethiopia overthrew the emperor's rule. All impoverished agrarian forces came behind what is called to be a socialist kind of revolution in 1974 in Ethiopia. The leader Mengistu Haile Mariam nationalized land, gave land to the peasants for cultivation and formed peasants' association. A cooperative structure was introduced with the aim of fulfilling the necessary demands of the local people as well as finding means and technology to increase the productivity under a peasant association. In 1989, there was a big revolt against Mengistu and Meles Jenawi took the charge as the new ruler. He did overturn the agrarian structure erected by Mengistu but weakened the peasant associations and dismantled the cooperative structure. Responding to the mounting pressure from IMF and World Bank to privatise the land, Zenawi enacted a new law in 2002. According to the new law, land is directly under state control. It has the exclusive power to buy and sell land in Ethiopia. The land is being given to the foreign multinationals on a very low lease rent and local population is being forced to vacate the land for these companies. There is great deal of discontent in peasantry which is being forced to become violent. Tanzania Professor of Sociology from Dar-es-Salaam University, Tanzania, Dr. Joachim Mwami spoke about the agrarian transformation in Tanzania and the time line of the cooperative movement. During the British colonial era, agricultural marketing cooperatives were established by the colonial government as instruments to organize cash crop production and their marketing as required by colonial trade. The cooperatives were also rooted in peasantry and the cooperative movement was used by the nationalist movement to dislodge the British colonial state during the independence struggle. In the post independence period cooperatives were used to dislodge the Asian commercial bourgeoisie. The second reason was the need on the part of the Tanzanian state to control the use of the surplus-product In 1970s, corruption became rampant at every level in the cooperative movement. As a consequence, the functional utility of cooperative societies as instruments of control began to decline. The primary societies which were the economic base of the cooperative unions became redundant and the unions were finally dissolved in 1976. The government finally re-introduced primary cooperatives and cooperative unions in 1982, through the Cooperative Societies Act. The damage, however, had already been done. The cooperatives had lost most their property and highly trained manpower and to date, the movement has not fully recovered. Hand in hand with this was that the morale of members of the cooperatives and the potential members was at its lowest. While in the earlier period cooperatives aimed at economic
10

success but one which was subordinated to social and common welfare aims, in the current phase of neo-liberalism in Tanzania, cooperatives have been reorganized to operate like business ventures responding to market demands. In the end, Dr. Mwami put the question to the house which is being debated in Tanzania. The question is what the struggle should be against. Should it be a struggle for a bourgeois democratic revolution like in the past or should it be a struggle for a socialist transition directly. The class character of the cooperative movement should be determined correspondingly. South Africa From Republic of South Africa, Director of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Dr. Amon Myeni presented his paper titled 'Catastrophic Failure of Cooperative Movement in South Africa.' He drew parallels to the history of Tanzania as they share the colonial past. He said that cooperatives were formed by the colonial rulers but they were not meant for the benefit of the local population and peasantry rather they facilitated the exploiters. He mentioned of the Land Act of 1913 which forced the African farmers out of their own land, the Land Bank Act of 1912 which denied access to institutional finance and the Marketing Act of 1937 which denied access to market. Finally the Cooperative Act of 1939 was more about uprooting any kind of possibilities of organization of local farmers. Dr. Myeni presented the skewed land distribution in South Africa where situation could not be improved even after 1994. He said that before 1994, there were 250 commercial agricultural cooperatives of white farmers, which had a membership of 142000 and total turnover in the range of 22.5 billion South African Rand. After 1994, there were hopes and promises but things could not proceed in the desired direction. The Restitution of Land Rights Act, 1994 and Communal Land Rights Act, 2004 targeted towards redistribution of 82 million hectares of land under white farmers' possession, to the people of Africa. The target was to redistribute 30% of white owned land i.e. 24 million hectares before the end of 2014, but in so many years only 1.7 million hectare has been redistributed. Still, lot of land is under cooperatives but there is no proper marketing network established so far. In the end, he pressed upon the need to have a holistic approach to make these agricultural cooperatives viable. African peasants need to be educated to adopt new technologies. A proper support system will help these cooperatives to become the agency of change, not only in agriculture but in every aspect of the life. This session on South Africa was attended by Counsellor of Agricultural Affairs from South African high Commission Mr. Mkhululi Mankazana and he participated in the discussion also. Nepal
11

Nepal is a small country but it a made a special niche for itself in the world history. The poor uneducated rural people could organise themselves and create enough force to overthrow monarchy. The country is struggling to consolidate political and economic situation for past seven years but the leadership has been retained by left and democratic forces throughout the tumultuous period. Central Committee member of Communist Party of Nepal (UML) Comrade Guru Baral gave an overview of the cooperative movement in Nepal, which covered the spread of cooperative network, role of women and government initiative in the area. He supplemented the overview with a left vision of how the movement should move forward. In this vision the movement should become broad based incorporating forward and backward linkages. It should be professional with participants getting extensive training and it should capable of facing the market challenge. There should be bulk production and brand name should be established. In this context Comrade Guru Baral talked of international alliance and appealed to delegates from different countries to spell out their commitment in this effort. Shri S.P. Shukla reiterated the appeal and said that corresponding to the idea of consolidating producers at national level, there is need to promote south-south co-operation in production and trade. Cuba and Venezuela homage to President Chavez The discussion on international experiences which began with recapitulating the cooperative movement in Mao's China was planned to reach its logical end by examining the cooperative movements of Cuba and Venezuela. In both the countries cooperative structure is built up with the explicit goal of attaining socialized ownership of resource base and it is central to their development trajectories. The unfortunate and untimely demise of President Chavez made it impossible for the Venezuelan delegate to reach in time and attend the workshop. Friends in the Venezuelan Embassy however prepared a brief note, which was distributed to the participants. The session began by paying homage to President Chavez. A huge poster showing Castro embracing Chavez constituted the backdrop. The occasion was graced by the presence of embassy personnel from Cuba and Venezuela. Director of Joshi-Adhikari Institute Professor Ajay Patniak welcomed everyone and paid respect to the memory of Chavez on behalf of the house. Dr. Jaya Mehta said that the boost to cooperative movement given by Chavez has once again infused confidence among the left forces that cooperatives would play a pivotal role in making a transition to socialist society. Chavez called cooperatives the outposts of socialism. She dedicated the workshop to his legacy of
12

21st century socialism. A short documentary showing Chavez with the people of Venezuela was shown by the embassy. Ambassador Ms. Milena Santana Ramirez addressed the gathering. She gave the background of the early years of Chavez and described how he emerged as an extraordinary revolutionary leader not just for Venezuela but for the entire Latin America and for everyone who wants to change the world. She said, 'We in Venezuela do not mourn his death, we celebrate his life and the legacy of his work.' Comrade Eduardo Iglesias Quintana, First Secretary from Cuban embassy paid his tributes by underlining the close relations between Cuba and Venezuela and Fidel and Chavez. Recollecting Che Guevara's appeal that we need, not one but many-many Vietnams, he said we need many-many Fidels and many-many Chavez to build a new world. Subsequently, every participant in the meeting joined in and expressed solidarity with the people of Venezuela and the cause for which Latin American and Caribbean people are struggling. The session ended with National Secretary of CPI and Member of Parliament from Rajya Sabha, Comrade D. Raja addressing the meeting. After a short tea break academic discourse was resumed with Cuban delegate Elbys Perez Olivera giving an exposition of cooperative movement in Cuba. He spoke in Spanish which was translated by Professor Meenakshi Saundriyal. Comrade Elbys gave a historical account of land reforms in 1959, post reform elementary cooperation like mutual aid brigades and agrarian societies, and the second agrarian reforms in 1963. It was in 1970s that the advanced form of producer cooperatives were introduced in Cuban agriculture. However, during the special period starting from 1989 the situation altered and the leadership realized that the big producer cooperatives were unable to function in the new circumstances. The big producer cooperatives were broken up into basic production cooperative units so as to retain people's motivation for giving their best to the farms. Currently, many households are only members of credit and service cooperatives and others are members of basic producer cooperative units. People are engaged in production on small family farms. In Cuba, basic democratic principles of cooperative functioning are strictly adhered to. Therefore, restructuring in farm holdings and cooperative forms is undertaken. But care is taken that peoples motivation is at its highest level. Comrade Elbys ended his talk by saying, 'What we have in Cuba is what we have chosen and we will keep it. This is our system but we are not offering it as recipe to others. We can all learn from each other.' This was indeed, an apt statement to wrap up the workshop on cooperatives. Participants' Response
13

Many senior leaders, activists and academicians attended the workshop with great attention and shared some of the plans which they can take up at their level. The participants were requested to respond to the discussions and deliberations that took place over past five days. Their response can be summarized as follows: 1. The participants found the proceedings in the workshop very useful. It provided a wider perspective and new insights into understanding the agrarian situation as well as cooperative movements. The presentations on the experiences of socialist countries, capitalist countries and post colonial economies of Africa especially generated a great deal of interest The theoretical premise was widened and technical details were contextualized. For instance - the concept of costless capital formation explained in the context of Chinese cooperatives was received with much interest. Similarly the land grab in Ethiopia generated much disquiet. However, there were topics which could not be covered adequately in the workshop and which required further deliberations with reference to cooperative movement. Two such areas pointed out by participants were the challenges posed by climate change and natural disasters and the exploitative international trade and possibilities of south-south cooperation. 2. There was general agreement in the house that the current onslaught of capitalist forces on petty producers and on the agrarian population in particular can be resisted only through collective action and the institution of cooperatives plays an important role in consolidating this collective action programme. Therefore, there was urgent need to protect, strengthen, restructure and expand the cooperative movement. This should be a political movement on priority agenda of the left forces. 3. The PACS, sugar cooperatives and dairy cooperatives all three structures had got hijacked by bureaucracy and vested interests. The neo-liberal policy move was to abolish PACS and to privatise sugar cooperatives. The participants from Bihar and Maharashtra were very keen to organise effective people's movements to protect these institutions and to make their functioning transparent and democratic. It was felt that for this purpose professional training was required at grass root level. There was insistence from many participants that such workshops should be organised at district level in regional languages. The training module should be comprehensive but simple and appropriate slogans should be coined to protect and strengthen the cooperative movement. A few participants offered that they will make all arrangements at local level for the proposed workshops. No reference was made to the producer collectives of women farmers discussed in the workshop. This was perhaps due to the fact that most women participants in the workshop had
14

left the previous day. Those who were present were not working at grass root level with women farmers. 4. It was proposed that instead of organising meetings at grass root level on an ad-hoc basis, a commission should be constituted at the national level. The commission would provide professional and political support when required and would coordinate different movements to give them a collective and organised form. Similarly an alliance was suggested also at the international level. An alliance made of people's movements in different countries can form an international pressure group. Such an alliance can work out a South-South cooperation trajectory. 5. Finally, apart from making suggestion at formal level, one big gain of the workshop was that participants informally planned cooperation with each other. Comrades from Nepal made plans to visit Maharashtra in a group and learn about their functioning from close quarters. Similarly, Bijay Panda, who is working with cooperatives of forest workers, invited Dinesh Abrol to visit the villages and examine the technological possibilities available to these cooperatives. This shows the interest of the people across the country in the theme of the workshop. It also underlines the need of such workshops and more interactive dialogues at many places across the country. (Please see the list of workshop participants in the end of the report.)i In the end, vote of thanks was given by Vineet Tiwari (Joshi-Adhikari Institute of Social Studies) to all the participants, speakers, guests and to all those who made the workshop a success. He reminded that it was 23rd March, the martyrdom day of great revolutionary Comrade Bhagat Singh. Bhagat Singh is known for his clarity of thoughts, political wisdom and firm commitment in Socialism. Let us pledge that we will follow the path paved by Com. Bhagat Singh by exploring the concrete ways to stop the exploitation of peasantry. Many of us felt elated as the movement was already on the move. *******

15

Participants List (It is not complete as many did not sign on the register)

Abroad 1- Bangkok Prof. Sriram Natrajan 2- China Prof. Li Xiande 3- Cuba Elbys Perez Olivera 4- Nepal - Hari Devkota (National Forum for Advocacy in Nepal or NAFAN), Nirmal Tamang, Guru Baral (Central Committee Member, Communist Party of Nepal-UML) 5- South Africa Dr. Amon Myeni 6- Spain Ms. Eva Torremocha 7- Tanzania Dr. Joachim Mwami 8- Vietnam Tuan Anh Ngo *** India 1- Andhra Pradesh - Comrade Kolli Nageshwar Rao, All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) National Vice President, Ms. K. Ajitha (Chief Editor of TV99), Ms. Pasya Padma (AIKS), Dr. Sailaja Kurra (Deccan Development Society or DDS), Narayan Swamy (HANDS) 2- Maharashtra Dr. Sulabha Brahme (Economist), Adwait Pednekar (Activist), Dr. Bhalchandra Kango (CPI Maharshtra State Secretary), Namdeo Gavade (Maharashtra General Secretary, AIKS), Chandrakant Wadaskar (AIKS), Dhanaji Gurav (Shramik Mukti Dal), Azad Thube (AIKS), Bansi Satpute (AIKS), Rohit Jain (Tata Institute of Social Studies or TISS) 3- Bihar- Girish Chandra (Nalanda), A. K. Prabhakar, Ashok Verma and Ashok Kumar (All India Peoples' Front), Prabhashankar Singh (AIKS), Ramchandra Mahto (AIKS), Puneet Mukhiya (AIKS), Ashok Prasad Singh (Bihar Cooperative Movement and AIKS) and Arshad Ajmal 4- Odisha - Arttabandhu Prusty, Bijay Panda 5- Uttar Pradesh - Ram Pratap Tripathi (State General Secretary, AIKS), Ajay Shrivastava (Action Aid, Lalitpur), Akhilendra Pratap Singh (All India Peoples' Front or AIPF), Ajit Singh Yadav (AIPF), Lal Bahadur (AIPF)

6- Tamil Nadu Ms. Esther Mariaselvam (Action Aid) 7- Kerala - Mohanchandran, Dr. Radha Subbier, Shobana and Kumar 8- Gujarat - Manish Kr. Mishra, 9- Assam - Ashangbam Swapan (Action Aid) 10- Jharkhand - Byomkesh Kumar Lal (Action Aid) 11- Madhya Pradesh - Sarika Shrivastava (NFIW), Saeed Khan (Journalist), Sachin Shrivastava (Journalist) from Madhya Pradesh, 12- Delhi Shanta Venkatraman, Subhash Gatade (New Socialist Initiative or NSI), Naveen Chander (NSI), Vinod Koshti (Rosa Luxembourg Stiftung or RLS), Manisha Lath (Shruti), Rupinder Kaur (Delhi University), Prof. Vijay Singh (Editor, Revolutionary Democracy), Saumya Deo Jain (Student), Shanta Venkatraman, Sunita, Roshan Nair, P. C. Jha (BJVJ), Iqbal Singh (Delhi University), Usama Khan (Sahulat Microfinance Society), Dr. Viswanath Thakur (JNU), Archishman Raju (Student), Sehjo Singh, Roshan Nair and many other senior leaders, activists, academicians and scholars attended the workshop.