On November 6, a New York times story In Land of Plenty, Few Places to Find Fresh Foods described the challenges of small, rural communities maintaining local shopping options.
The article led with an example of a small town in the Midwest that is a center for the farming community. As in many other small communities across the country local grocery stores have closed in the face of large regional competitors. “It’s the story of every small town; it’s a domino effect and it starts with the grocery store,” states a resident of Winchester, Illinois, a town of 1,500.
The irony of over five million people who make their living feeding the rest of the nation but having to drive at least 10 miles to buy groceries, has prompted local residents in a number of these circumstances to seek new options.
One solution is to set up cooperatives financed by residents to start their own stores. “This isn’t charity. This was self-responsibility. If you want a grocery store in town, you have to step up to it,” says one of the founders of Winchester’s for-profit coop which opened in August 2018.
The article describes multiple volunteers contributing community help and resources. Radishes and spinach are delivered from a local farm; milk from a local dairy; beef from a nearby ranch and eggs are delivered once per week by a local farmer.
Co-op design allowed local residents to mobilize resources for solutions that larger firms do not see as practical or profitable.
Parallel histories for farmers and consumer finance
Farming coops are one of the creators of this country’s collaborative business model at the turn of the 19th century. So popular were cooperative solutions in rural America, that the original bureau for federal credit unions was assigned to the Department of Agriculture in 1934 when the Federal Credit Union Act was enacted.
Credit unions in the past and even today actively serve “credit deserts”. These are communities where no locally-owned financial institutions are located. Credit policy and lending priorities are set at headquarters located outside the areas served.
Relevance for credit unions
Should these “fresh” initiatives be borne in mind as several hundred local credit unions per year cancel their charters to merge with larger, often out-of-area, credit unions? Is giving up local control, leadership and resource allocation compromising the unique capacity of credit unions to fill voids left by larger financial competitors?
It’s common for credit unions to donate to food banks.
What if some of those donations would be used to give food cooperative coupons/vouchers to credit union members who are struggling economically? Ideally the food cooperative would also provide opportunities to get further discounts by volunteering to help run the business, as is common in food cooperative.
I think many would find this sort of mutual self-help more dignifying than being given food from a food bank – not that there should be a stigma in doing so. Perhaps especially many men who are reluctant to get help and who could benefit from it greatly would find this psychologically more helpful. Abstract models of comparing the logistical cost-effectiveness of providing food through food banks or food cooperatives can’t capture this difference. But can credit unions?
It could be used to demonstrate the cooperative difference of credit unions in a way no advertisement campaign could. You mentioned the The Open Your Eyes campaign budget was $50 million. What if there was as equally large campaign, where 5 million credit union members would use a 10$ coupon in a new cooperative business?
It doesn’t have to be limited to food cooperatives either. Maybe a couple who open up a joint-account could be given a pair of movie tickets that could be used in a local cooperative cinema. The possibilities are endless.
It wouldn’t be unfair to say that the American credit union movement was born from a unique way that Edward Filene did charity. He helped reduce obstacles people face when they try to help themselves through setting up cooperatives. As it became harder and more expensive to start a new credit union, this tradition started to fade away. There is a case to be made that it’s harder for credit unions to help people set up cooperatives other than credit unions, as it requires different type of expertise. But I hope credit unions would ask themselves – if we are not carrying on Filenes distinctive charitable tradition of helping start new coops, who is?
Leo Sammallahti
From Finland, where 90% of the people are members of at least one cooperative