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Global Lessons for Minnesota Cooperatives
Frank Blackburn, a self-proclaimed “cooperative missionary,” is back from a tour of duty in Egypt were he did an assessment of how U.S. cooperative development projects are working with tomato growers along the Nile River.
This is noted here for several reasons.
First, economic development aid is provided through several budgets of the U.S. government. Some cover projects purely to help developing countries strengthen their economies and to help forge economic ties with American economic interests. Among publicly supported groups doing this work is the ACDI / VOCA development arms of American cooperative businesses.
Second, Blackburn, of Oakdale, has been working on two or three overseas projects a year for ACDI / VOCA or Arden Hills-based Land O’Lakes, as a contractor, since he retired from the former Minnesota Association of Cooperatives in 1994 that is now part of the Wisconsin-Minnesota Cooperative Network trade association.
He’s since worked on projects to help develop new cooperatives in most of the former Yugoslavia states, in parts of the former Soviet Union including independent Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, various countries in Africa including Malawi and Ghana, and former Eastern European Soviet enclaves Albania and Moldova.
Third, Nile valley Egyptian farmers have been producing fresh produce since long before King Tut’s (Tutankhamun) voice started to change. But through millennia, Blackburn notes, most of this production has been geared to the fresh produce markets in which misshapen or day- or two-day old vegetables become waste.
Enter benefits of the global economy. The H.J. Heinz Co., from near Pittsburgh, entered Egypt to start making its world-leading brand of catsup. Co-op development people began working with Egyptian farmers to form “associations,” or cooperatives, to gather, market and manage supplies of tomatoes for Heinz factories.
Modern marketing science links with historically the oldest successful forms of irrigated food production in ways that serve both Egyptian and American economic interests.
If you want to see how this serves everyone, Blackburn explains, Minnesotans need only turn to a thoughtful interview story in the July 23 edition of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. In it, Land O’Lakes chief executive officer Chris Policinski explains why such foreign aid investments help American business and economic interests (“CEO says foreign aid hits home.”)
Such projects that Blackburn and others work on help people build from the ground up abroad. At the same time, they serve the long-term interests of the American dairy farmers who own Land O’Lakes and the grain and oilseed producers who own CHS Inc. (Inver Grove Heights), the nation’s No. 2 and No. 1 largest farmer-owned enterprises, and major food companies such as Heinz.
All that will be lost if budget battles in Washington destroy American business opportunities to develop economies and new partners in developing countries. That is now a serious threat. What’s more, adds Blackburn, what is learned abroad can sometimes come back and help us with business practices at home.
“The market might be working well for you if you are the only bell pepper producer for the St. Paul Farmers Market. But if you are one of 144 suppliers of bell peppers to the market, you ought to look at what the Egyptian tomato farmers are doing,” he said.
Posted in Economic Development | Related Topics: Economic Growth International Trade Co-ops Small Business