Listing of top 300 co-ops: India cuts a sorry figure

Indian cooperators including ministers constantly claim ad nauseam that they represent the strongest cooperative movement in the world but a mere two of their cooperatives have figured in the global list of top 300 co-operatives put out recently.

India claims to have 25 crore people connected to cooperatives in some form or other. The country also boats nearly 6.5 lakh cooperative societies but barring IFFCO not one of them has been able to exercise influence at the global level.

Thanks to IFFCO and Markfed (Andhra Pradesh), India has managed to gain a foothold in the world cooperative community. However, some Indian co-operatives have not figured in the list because they are not members of ICA. Amul may be the case in point. This seems to indicate anomalies in the ranking report.

Among the top five co-ops three belong to France and two to Japan. The first three are Crédit Agricole Group of France having a revenue of $103.58 bn and Groupe Caisse D’Epargneg again from France with $ 58.54bn. The third is from Japan named Zen-Noh (National Federation of Agricultural Co-operatives) having a revenue of $ 56.99 bn.

The list shows IFFCO standing at 197th rank having a revenue of $1.52 bn. Another Indian presence in the list is that of Markfed which stands almost at the bottom occupying 291th position with a revenue of $0.71 bn.

The list is given below

(Source: ICA)