Advantages of a Service Co-operative Society

A service co-operative society brings a number of clear benefits, both to its individual members and to the rural community and economy as a whole.

1. All essential services in one place. Because the society is multipurpose, a member can obtain credit, farm inputs, consumer goods, storage, and marketing help from a single, familiar organisation in his own village — saving him time, travel, and cost.

2. Freedom from exploitation. By providing cheap credit, the society frees the small farmer from the clutches of the moneylender; by selling inputs and consumer goods at fair prices it protects him from profiteering traders; and by marketing his produce collectively it shields him from exploitative middlemen. This is perhaps its single greatest social advantage.

3. Benefit of bulk buying and collective bargaining. Acting together, members enjoy the lower prices and better terms that come from buying inputs in bulk and selling produce collectively — advantages an individual small farmer could never secure on his own.

4. Encouragement of thrift and self-help. The society encourages members to save and to deposit their money, building the habit of thrift and mobilising local savings for productive local use. It embodies the co-operative spirit of self-help through mutual help.

5. Reasonable rate of interest. Loans are given at moderate, fair rates fixed on co-operative principles, sharply lower than the exorbitant rates once charged by private moneylenders — reducing the burden of rural indebtedness.

6. Democratic and equitable control. The 'one member, one vote' rule ensures that even the poorest member has an equal say in how the society is run, so the benefits and control are shared fairly rather than captured by the wealthy few. …