Co-ops are Everywhere!

We spent October celebrating Co-op Month in our area of North Carolina, but did you know that the cooperative business model spans across many industries AND across the globe?

Or did you know that the UN declared 2012 the International Year of Cooperatives?   (www.2012.coop, the official IYC 2012 global website)

To celebrate the IYC, Stories.coop  was launched. It is the world’s first global, digital campaign to spread the benefits of cooperation through the tradition of story-telling. 

From their website:

There are more cooperatives in the world than most people realise (sic). There are more than one billion people in the world who are involved in a cooperative in some form. Cooperatives operate across almost all sectors of the economy, from banking and financial markets, to housing, to food and agriculture, to publishing and to education.

Here are some interesting (and stunning, we think) facts about cooperatives that you might want to know:

> In Japan 91% of farmers operate as part of a cooperative.

> In France, cooperatives account for 60% of retail banking, 40% of food and agricultural production and 25% of retail sales.

> In Kenya, cooperatives are responsible for 45% of GDP.

> In Bolivia, 1/3 of the population has cooperative membership.

And that’s just the beginning!

Visit their site to read some amazing stories about what co-ops around the world our doing. It definitely will energize (or re-energize) you to see how The Community Market Food Co-op will make an impact in our small section of the globe.

“Cooperatives are an important part of the global economy – let’s make sure that the world knows too. Now is the time to fly the cooperative flag.” – via stories.coop