When most of us think of cooperatives, we think of credit unions, fishermen cooperatives, and even taxi unions. But there is a lot more to the co-op movement, so as part of activities for co-operatives' week, staff members from the Department have been making their rounds on the talk show circuit all in an effort to publicize the work of the department. Today they took their message to the center of Belize City at the Battlefield Park. 7NEWS stopped in at the park where we learned that there is strength in numbers maybe even enough to buck down globalization.
Keith Swift Reporting,
This looks like a regular gun holster which you can buy retail for about 30 dollars. But actually this is much more. It is just a small armament in the local war against the all enveloping free trade blanket which threatens to smother local entrepreneurs if they don't unite.
Zenaida Moya, Registrar of Cooperatives
"I see this as the most formidable way of the small man to actually get his or her foot into the global arena. We already see this in the fishing area. We see that yes the fisher cooperatives they engage in business with these multi-nationals and at the end of the day all the profits and all the gains come right back to our local fishermen. But we also want to do so with our agriculture cooperatives and that is why for example we have one in San Carlos Village and they are getting into pepper production."
From pepper on the international market to plantains and long, and full and arching as god's eyebrow, to slate renderings, to the aphrodisiac bee pollen - Zenaida Moya says these cooperative producers have the product and the strategy to survive in lean times.
Zenaida Moya,
"There is a spread in terms of risk when it is a cooperative because depending on what business it is engaging in, there will always be a need for their product and item and they will have the ability to continue on even in the face of economic turmoil. They are actually the ingredients along with hard work and toil to ensure that a cooperative is successful so it needs the cooperation of all its members and it needs to be consistent and diligent in whatever they engage in."
And turmoil is what globalization is threatening many large producers whit, but not these folks they're determined to fight the powers that be.
There are more than 70 active cooperatives in Belize.