A cooperative federation or secondary cooperative is a

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, coöperative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomy, autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned a ...

in which all members are, in turn, cooperatives. Historically, cooperative federations have predominantly come in the form of cooperative wholesale societies and cooperative unions. Gide, Charles; as translated from French by the Cooperative Reference Library, Dublin, ''Consumers' Cooperative Societies'', Manchester: The Cooperative Union Limited, 1921, p. 122, Cooperative federations are a means through which cooperatives can fulfill the sixth

Cooperative Principle In social science generally and linguistics specifically, the cooperative principle describes how people achieve effective conversational communication in common social situations—that is, how listeners and speakers act cooperatively and mutual ...

, cooperation among cooperatives. The

International Cooperative Alliance The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), established in 1895, is a non-governmental organization dedicated to uniting, representing, and supporting Cooperative, cooperatives around the world. It is the guardian of the internationally recogn ...

notes that ''“Cooperatives serve their members most effectively and strengthen the cooperative movement by working together through local, national, regional and international structures.”''

Retail

According to cooperative economist

Charles Gide Charles Gide (; 1847–1932) was a French economist and historian of economic thought. He was a professor at the University of Bordeaux, at Montpellier, at Université de Paris and finally at Collège de France. His nephew was the author Andr ...

, the aim of a

cooperative wholesale society A cooperative wholesale society (CWS) is a form of cooperative federation (that is, a cooperative in which all the members are cooperatives), in this case, the members are usually consumer cooperatives. The theory, practice and history of the ...

, which is owned by retail

consumer cooperative A consumer cooperative is an enterprise owned by consumers and managed democratically and that aims at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of its members. Such cooperatives operate within the market economy independently of the state, as a form ...

s, is to arrange "bulk purchases, and, if possible, organise production". The best historical examples of this were the English and Scottish Cooperative Wholesale Societies, which were the forerunners to the modern

Cooperative Group The Co-operative Group Limited, trading as Co-op and formerly known as the Co-operative Wholesale Society, is a British consumer cooperative, consumer co-operative with a group of retail businesses, including grocery retail and wholesale, leg ...

Cooperative union

A second common form of cooperative federation is a cooperative union, whose objective (according to Gide) is “to develop the spirit of solidarity among societies and... in a word, to exercise the functions of a government whose authority, it is needless to say, is purely moral.” Cooperatives UK and the

are examples of such arrangements.

Banking

* Austria's

Raiffeisen Banking Group The Raiffeisen Banking Group (, RBG) is a group of cooperative banks in Austria. The Austrian Raiffeisen banks are not consolidated under a single parent entity but are financially linked through a common institutional protection scheme a ...

includes many cooperative banks in Austria as well as operations (not organized as cooperatives) in eastern Europe. * Germany's ''Volksbanken'' and ''Raiffeisenbanken'' are cooperative banks within the

German Cooperative Financial Group The German Cooperative Financial Group (, sometimes referred to in English as "Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken Cooperative Financial Network") is a major cooperative banking network in Germany that includes local banks named Volksbanken ("people's ...

. * France's

Crédit Agricole Crédit Agricole Group (), sometimes called La banque verte (, , due to its historical ties to farming), is a French international banking group and the world's largest cooperative financial institution. It is the second largest bank in France, ...

is a multi-tiered network of primary and secondary cooperatives and hybrid cooperatives. * In the UK, The Cooperative Bank is a

joint-stock A joint-stock company (JSC) is a business entity in which shares of the company's stock can be bought and sold by shareholders. Each shareholder owns company stock in proportion, evidenced by their shares (certificates of ownership). Shareholder ...

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is the sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholes ...

and

commercial bank A commercial bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and gives loans for the purposes of consumption and investment to make a profit. It can also refer to a bank or a division of a larger bank that deals with whol ...

, whose stock is wholly owned by The Cooperative Group, a hybrid primary and secondary cooperative. * In the US,

credit union A credit union is a member-owned nonprofit organization, nonprofit cooperative financial institution. They may offer financial services equivalent to those of commercial banks, such as share accounts (savings accounts), share draft accounts (che ...

s cooperatively own

payment network A payment system is any system used to settle financial transactions through the transfer of monetary value. This includes the institutions, payment instruments such as payment cards, people, rules, procedures, standards, and technologies that mak ...

s and

financial adviser A financial adviser or financial advisor is a professional who provides financial services to clients based on their financial situation. In many countries, financial advisors must complete specific training and be registered with a regulatory ...

s. * In South Korea,

National Agricultural Cooperative Federation The South Korean National Agricultural Cooperative Federation (initialized as NH (in Korean, derived from NongHyup) or NACF) was established in 1961 to enhance the social and economic status of its membership and to promote a balanced developme ...

is a multi-purpose agricultural cooperatives' federation. * Mexico, a, Loan and savings cooperative with more than 1.8 million members.

Agriculture

Regional

agricultural cooperative An agricultural cooperative, also known as a farmers' co-op, is a producer cooperative in which farmers pool their resources in certain areas of activities. A broad typology of agricultural cooperatives distinguishes between agricultural servic ...

s, such as

Land O'Lakes Land O'Lakes, Inc. is an American member-owned agricultural cooperative based in the Minneapolis-St. Paul suburb of Arden Hills, Minnesota, United States, focusing on the dairy industry. The cooperative has 1,959 direct producer-members, 751 ...

and the former

Farmland Industries Farmland Industries was the largest agricultural cooperative in North America when it eventually sold all of its assets in 2002–04. During its 74-year history, Farmland served its farmer membership as a diversified, integrated organization, pla ...

, are cooperative federations owned by local farmers' cooperatives. Like the Cooperative Group (above), Land O'Lakes is actually a hybrid of a primary and secondary cooperative.

Cooperative party

In some countries with strong cooperative sectors, such as the UK, cooperatives have organized parliamentary

political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...

to represent their interests. The British Cooperative Party is an example of such an arrangement.

Other uses

Cooperatives whose member owners are businesses, such as

retailers' cooperative A retailers' cooperative is a type of cooperative which employs economies of scale on behalf of its Retailing, retailer members. Retailers' cooperatives use their purchasing power to acquire discounts from manufacturers and often share marketing e ...

s, are sometimes called ''secondary cooperatives'', even when their members are not themselves cooperatives.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooperative Federation