La coopération en Irlande

Cooperation could not develop in Ireland prior to about 1880 because of the complete insecurity oj land tenure. At first the cooperative development Was based not on the farmers but rather on the intellectuals. Nonetheless it developed rapidly with the objective of all purpose cooperatives servering every need of the community in buying, marketing, education. The cooperatives suffered a severe setback in the early 1920's when owning to their political neutrality they were scorned by the Nationalists and burnt by the British. The members were then split by the Civil War, and business hurt by the fall in agricultural prices. The second spring of the cooperative movement is now apparent. Having consolidated their business position the cooperatives find that a new generation of farmers, better educated and with more economic ambition, is learning to use these cooperatives which exist and to develop new ones. Problems which present themselves are the consolidation of creameries into units handling 250,000,000 kilogrames of milk per year, the tacking over of 60 % of the animal fodder, compounding and sales, the reorganisation of the central organisation.