Need to replicate cooperative union model

(QBĐT) - In the current integration trend, cooperatives need to promote linkages to establish Cooperative Unions to focus on investment and expand production and business scale. This is also the basis for promoting and building product brands, forming value chains to help cooperatives operate more effectively and sustainably.

According to the 2023 Law on Cooperatives, a cooperative union is a legal entity voluntarily established by at least 3 official member cooperatives, cooperating and supporting each other in production and business, creating jobs, improving capacity to participate in the market, contributing to building a sustainable social community; implementing autonomous governance, self-responsibility, equality and democracy.

In the province, at the end of March 2020, the Le Thuy Agricultural Service Production and Business Cooperative Union was established with 4 members, including: Thuong Phong Agricultural Service Production and Business Cooperative, Phong Thuy Commune; Quy Hau Agricultural Service Production and Business Cooperative, Lien Thuy Commune; My Loc Thuong Agricultural Service Production and Business Cooperative, An Thuy Commune and Mai Ha Agricultural Service and Trade Construction Cooperative, Xuan Thuy Commune; with a total charter capital of 400 million VND. This is currently the only cooperative union in the province.

This cooperative union was established based on the common point that all member cooperatives are participating in rice production. From small-scale, fragmented production, it has shifted to linking up into large fields, raw material areas for commercial rice production associated with product consumption. Thereby, helping to improve the quality and value of products, moving towards building a rice brand in the market, increasing income for members.

Currently, Le Thuy Agricultural Production and Service Cooperative Union has not yet developed rice products for its unit.

Mr. Vo Van Khinh, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Director of Le Thuy Agricultural Production and Service Cooperative Union, said: After its establishment, the Cooperative Union has promoted its role, creating conditions for members to support and help each other in the production and business process through good organization of production scale. Along with that, in rice production, the Cooperative Union will provide cheap input products and services, output products have unified prices so they are not forced to lower prices, ensuring stable income for members.

However, Le Thuy Agricultural Production and Service Cooperative Union still faces many difficulties due to lack of capital, production and business plans, quality human resources, etc.; in which, the most difficult is capital to purchase modern equipment for production as well as equipment to process finished products to bring to market.

After 5 years of establishment, Le Thuy Agricultural Production and Service Cooperative Union has only stopped at the common point of providing cheap input, stable output, and expanding the consumption market. This cooperative union has not yet made a breakthrough when it has not built its own brand of quality rice products; the member cooperatives of the union are still doing their own thing, organizing production themselves, and finding markets for their products.

Cooperative Union is a new collective economic model in the province, therefore, to establish new ones as well as maintain existing cooperative unions, it is necessary to have more attention, facilitation and support from all levels and sectors.

Quang Binh currently has 513 cooperatives, including many agricultural cooperatives with similar products and business lines, such as: rice, sweet potatoes, turmeric starch, pepper, chicken, etc. Therefore, linking these cooperatives to establish cooperative unions of inter-commune, inter-district, and inter-regional nature is necessary. Thereby, contributing to reorganizing production, forming large fields, producing concentrated agricultural goods to ensure quality, uniformity in types associated with the value chain from production, processing, and consumption to exploit the potential and advantages of each locality.

Chairman of the Provincial Cooperative Union Dinh Nguyen Quynh Hoa said: “In the current trend, focusing on linking production and business is extremely necessary. The cooperative union model is currently being encouraged by the province to be replicated because it creates concentrated investment in production, processing, and product consumption, helping to reduce investment costs in infrastructure as well as management apparatus. In particular, this linkage overcomes the long-standing problem that individual production of each cooperative will not have enough quantity of goods to supply input materials for businesses.”

The Provincial Cooperative Union will continue to coordinate with relevant sectors and local authorities to survey and select cooperative models with sufficient potential and efficiency in production and business activities to promote, mobilize, and guide the establishment of cooperative unions, focusing on cooperative models with OCOP products. Along with that, the Provincial Cooperative Union will continue to promote and guide cooperative unions and cooperatives to access policies to support capital, promote trade, improve the quality of human resources, and provide training on building production and business plans for cooperatives and cooperative unions...

Thanh Hoa

Source: https://www.baoquangbinh.vn/kinh-te/202503/can-nhan-rong-mo-hinh-lien-hiep-hop-tac-xa-2225043/