What Is a
Cooperative?
A cooperative is a special type of enterprise. It is a social enterprise
that balances between two major objectives: satisfying its members' needs, and
pursuing profit and sustainability. Agricultural and food cooperatives can be
registered cooperatives, or they may take other names and forms: producer
organizations, self-help groups, unions and federations of producers, or
chambers of agriculture, to name a few.
Cooperatives are present in all countries and
all sectors, including agriculture, food, finance, health care, marketing,
insurance and credit. It is estimated that one billion individuals are members
of cooperatives worldwide, generating more than 100 million jobs around the
world. In agriculture, forestry, fishing and livestock, members participate in
production, profit-sharing, cost-saving, risk-sharing and income-generating
activities, that lead to better bargaining power for members as buyers and
sellers in the market place.
Numerous success stories around the world have
shown that rural institutions like producer organizations and cooperatives
contribute to food security by helping small farmers, fisher folk, livestock
keepers, forest holders and other producers to access the information, tools and
services they need. This allows them to increase food production, market their
goods and create jobs, improving their own livelihoods and increasing food
security in the world.
Accumulated research and experience show that
while small farmers acting alone did not benefit from higher food prices, those
acting collectively in strong producer organizations and cooperatives were
better able to take advantage of market opportunities and mitigate the negative
effects of food and other crises.
Another powerful contribution of cooperatives
and producer organizations is their ability to help small producers voice their
concerns and interests – and ultimately increase their negotiating power and
influence policy-making processes.
The International Year of Cooperatives in 2012
celebrates the unique role that this “business model with a social conscience”
plays in our modern world. World Food Day 2012 shines a light on agricultural
cooperatives in particular, and their contribution to poverty and hunger
reduction. Agricultural and food cooperatives are already a major tool against
poverty and hunger.
Affected Groups:
- Infants under the age of two years.
- Children and adolescents.
- Pregnant women and nursing mothers.
Malnutrition:
Malnutrition takes three forms, including:
1. Malnutrition:
Malnutrition means 'badly nourished', but is more than a measure of what we
eat or fail to eat. Malnutrition is characterized by inadequate intake of
protein, energy and micronutrients and by frequent infections and diseases.
Starved of the right nutrition, people will die from common infections like
measles or diarrhea. Malnutrition is measured not by how much food is eaten but
by physical measurements of the body - weight or height - and age and laboratory
analysis of blood.
2. Undernourishment:
Under-nourishment is used to describe the status of people whose food
intake does not include enough calories (energy) to meet minimum physiological
needs for an active life. At present, there are 1.02 billion undernourished
people worldwide, most of them in developing countries.
3. Unbalanced Malnutrition:
Unbalanced Malnutrition is the nutrition that is where eating certain types
of foods most of the other such as carbohydrates or fat, leading to the
emergence of chronic diseases, including obesity and heart disease.
What are the effects of malnutrition?
Malnutrition covers a range of problems, such as being dangerously thin,
being too short for one's age, being deficient in vitamins and minerals (such as
lacking iron which makes you anaemic), or even being too fat
(obese).
Micronutrient - vitamin and mineral -
deficiencies are very important, afflicting nearly two billion people worldwide.
According to the World Health Organization, deficiencies of iron, vitamin A, and
zinc rank among the top ten leading causes of death through disease in
developing countries.
Iron deficiency is the most prevalent form of malnutrition, affecting
billions of people worldwide. Iron deficiency damages a country's productivity
and impedes cognitive development. Vitamin A deficiency is a leading cause of
child blindness across developing countries. Millions children are born mentally
impaired because their mothers did not consume enough iodine during pregnancy.
Zinc deficiency contributes to growth failure and weakened immunity in young
children; it results may lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children
per year.
At the Local Level:
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the largest food importers, and the
Saudi society is reckoned a consumer society. Consequently, a number of diseases
associated with the dietary behavior, indicating the incidence of malnutrition,
have come into being among all individuals and society segments. Among these
diseases are the chronic diseases, such as: obesity, heart diseases, diabetes,
blood pressure, tooth decay, thinness, anemia and osteoporosis. The underlying
cause of all such diseases is pursuing bad dietary habits, like eating fatty
foods, using saturated fats and fast foods, just to mention some.
Solutions:
In view of the continued rise of the prices of basic commodities, on which
the family depends, we have to find radical and viable and solutions, in an
endeavor to evade the negative effects of this rise in price on the health of
individuals (and, accordingly, families) who are unable to keep pace with such
high prices, or afford for basic commodities. It should be noted, however, that
the Global Crisis could be a good opportunity for bringing about significant
changes for the advantage of our society. Food scientists have long been calling
for improving the consumer lifestyle. The status quo is turning out to be the
best time to make use of this crisis in solving our health problems and make a
breakthrough in this domain.