The ICA-AP NACF Joint workshop on Co-operative Systems was held in Seoul, Korea from May 15 to 18. Since 2002, this workshop has been held to help the development of agricultural co-operatives in developing countries. This year, 12 delegates representing nine organizations from India, Malaysia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Vietnam, participated in the workshop. On the first day, the Welcome Address was given by M. Heo Sik, the Vice Chairman of NACF, which was followed by presentations about the history, business areas, and introductions of each NACF business. This session was then followed by country reports by the participating countries.
During the intensive field visits by workshop participants
From the second day, participants visited facilities run either by member co-operatives or NACF. The first visit was to RPC (Rice Processing Complex), a factory for drying, storing, processing and packing rice after harvest. The 151 RPCs in Korea help to reduce the production cost and produce high quality rice. This was followed by a visit to a Local Food store run by member co-op, Ilsan Nonghyup. It is a small-scale store in which farmers can sell their agricultural produce and which they determine price, decide on display, and control stocks. For all the services, farmers pay 2-3% of their sales. The concept is to connect food producers and consumers in the same geographic region and is emerging as a new marketing channel for small-scale farmers. The group then proceeded to Goyang Hanaro Mart, which is one of the largest hypermarkets in Korea. The delegates were interested in the unique operating system where NACF has the right to run most of the assets owned by Goyang city and gives back 30% of the net profit. The annual sales last year was USD 250 million.
On the third day, the participants visited the Anseong Agricultural Product Distribution Center, which is the biggest agricultural logistics center in Korea. It has, not only distribution and storage functions, but also offers packaging and processing services. Member co-operatives have their own facilities with similar functions which are called APCs (Agricultural Product Processing Centers), usually on the production site. Anseong center distributes the goods that each APC gathers on a large scale. The group then visited Nonghyup Seed, which is a branch office of NACF dealing with vegetable seeds and seedlings. It is as old as NACF itself and was set up to stabilize the seed prices, develop high performance seeds and protect the seed sovereignty. Lastly, they went to the Central Agricultural Equipment Distribution Center, which was opened in April 2018. It plays the role of supplying farming materials and equipment to member co-operatives. Its major advantage is that co-operatives can lower down the price of the materials by ordering them in bulk and supplying them on time. The workshop tours concluded with a visit to Seoul city.
