Cooperative Farming.

COOPERATIVE FARMING

                                                                                                 Stes de Necker

Cooperative farming must not be confused with communal farming systems being practised in certain parts of the world. The well known Kibbutz system practised in Israel is a form of communal farming, where a number of individuals share responsibilities in a single farming operation.

Cooperative Farming differs considerably from communal farming in the sense that separate farming operations, jointly, form a cooperative, each with its own responsibility within a chain of agricultural production.

The concept of cooperative farming, originated primarily in New Zealand in the late 1980’s, when the then Government of New Zealand virtually handed political power over to the opposition in the 1986 election.

At that stage, NZ was for all intense and purpose bankrupt, and the newly elected government inherited an economically devastated society. Many civil servants were retrenched and serious cutbacks in the country’s national budget had to be effected.

Not being in a the fiscal position to effectively support the New Zealand agricultural sector any more, organised agriculture approached the NZ Government with the proposal that should the government relinquish all unnecessary controls over the agricultural sector, the farming community of NZ will organise and regulate themselves in a system, which they believe, can restore the economic decline in the agricultural industry. The only government support they required, was for the NZ Government to protect the agricultural sector against foreign economic threads like dumping, subsidisation, restrictive exchange controls etc.

Up to 1986, New Zealand used to be a nett importer of basic agricultural produce, Millions of Rands of dairy products, meat, poultry and grain were imported from South Africa at the time.

The NZ farmers came to agreement to work together in a system of specialised cooperative farming, where each farming enterprise undertook to specialise in a particular faset of the agricultural process.

In dairy farming, the system of specialised cooperative farming required that a farmer whose farming operation is best suited for pasture development, will revert to the establishment of, exclusively, pasture grazing, while a second farmer who may be better equipped for animal husbandry, will concentrate on rearing the most productive cows for milk production.

A third entity, separate from both the above, will concentrate on the most scientific milking practices and systems as well as the distribution of fresh milk and value adding. This meant that all three operations could be shared by three distinct farming enterprises, each one with its own identity and responsibility.

This system made it possible that the cattle owner, scientifically breed and develop his cow stock, allow it to graze on the pasture owner’s lands, which in turn was scientifically developed by the pasture owner to render optimal growth and nutritional value, and have the cows milked at the milking facility, which specialises in best practice milking procedures and fresh milk distribution.

A fourth, value adding component, who specialises in secondary dairy manufacturing like for instance powdered milk, yoghurt, cheese, butter etc. is responsible for this function in the value adding chain.

The same principles were also applied in beef and poultry production, where the livestock owner, grazing pasture/ broiler facility owner, abattoir, and meat/egg processing facility, each operated as a separate profit centre.

Also in cash cropping and vegetable farming, the land owner from whom the fields are rented, the owner of the tractors and implements required for crop production, the crop owner, milling and distribution and secondary food production such as vegetable oils, margarine, cereals etc. all functioned as separate profit centres.

This system of specialised cooperative farming enabled the NZ agricultural industry to move, in a period of no less than fifteen years, from a position of nett importer to nett exporter of agricultural produce.  

Communal farming is nothing new to the African people and in most Africa regions, communal farming is the accepted rule rather than the exception.

Until very recently, Africa had a very strong feudal system of land ownership. Rural land belonged to a Chief, who in turn allocates certain portions thereof to feudal land dwellers who cultivates the land.

Even today, most of the land which belonged to the former TBVC areas, (Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei) is currently State land under control of a host of Tribal Authorities within those areas.

The integration of an already acceptable system of cooperative collaboration, with the practices of precision farming and no-till farming, lies at the hart of the agricultural development model designed by Mann Oelrich and Stes de Necker of ARPM.  

Anyone interested to receive more information on this model can contact Stes de Necker at: stesdenecker@telkomsa.net 
Fax to Email: 0866125254