By Nicholas Amoah, graduate student in agribusiness and food industry managementå
The College Conference on Cooperatives in Minneapolis was an eye-opening experience for me. The program encompassed presentations, discussions, and visits to some of the Minneapolis co-ops, associations of groups and people who work together to achieve common goals. The experience was more than I expected.
I learned about cooperatives by assisting a supervisor back in Ghana on one of his projects, in which he trained honeybee farmers on setting up a cooperative in the central region of Ghana. However, I did not know that there were different types of co-ops outside of agriculture. The conference taught me about housing co-ops, rural electric co-ops, consumer co-ops, workers co-ops, hybrid/multistakeholder co-ops and more. I particularly enjoyed the conversation about career opportunities within the different co-ops.
A main lesson I learned from the conference was that more can be done with fewer resources through co-ops. As the manager or a board member of a co-op, you should be interested in what would attract people to join or contribute to the co-op's success.
Paula Faulkner, Ph.D., has facilitated students’ attendance at the conference for nearly 10 years.
“The National Farmers Union’s Conference College on Cooperatives has been a great experiential learning experience for many CAES students across the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences,” she said. “Students are fully engaged, touring the various co-ops in Minneapolis and attending a dinner theater to guest speakers. Another highlight is the time spent at the largest mall in America, which is always a highlight.”
