Jeroen Douglas took up the role of Director General at the International Cooperative Alliance in January and has spent 2024 listening, learning and planning with the cooperative movement worldwide. Ahead of the organisation’s Global Cooperative Conference in New Delhi in November, he embarked on a tour of Asia, meeting colleagues and cooperators in Korea, Japan, China and India.
“Asia is a region that is demographically rich, culturally diverse, economically dynamic, and deeply rooted in history,” he said.
In Korea, Jeroen met with the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation (NACF), which runs 43 retail shops valuing over US$1.5bn in sales, with agricultural supplies sourced from its 2.1 million member farmers. The organisation aims to build fully integrated supply chains; 62% of all products on the shelves are from their members. “Management takes much lower margins than competing retail, allowing for sharp consumer prices with high customer satisfaction scores. NACF makes trade fair, the cooperative way,” he said.
Jeroen was hosted by NACF Chair, Hodong Kang (who is also the new President of the International Cooperative Agriculture Organisation (ICAO), one of the ICA's eight sectoral bodies) and Noh Dong-Jin, President of the Korean Fishing Cooperatives Association (KNFFC) and the International Cooperative Fisheries Organization (another ICA sectoral body).
He also met with the leadership of Korean iCoop. “This was among the most inspiring cooperative visits I have experienced since I joined the ICA,” Jeroen said. “Ms Mi-kyung Shin (iCoop chair) explained how the healthcare movement is intimately linked to food and deep seawater. The cooperative organisation combines organic with Fairtrade and a healthy diet, all starting with deep-sea minerals. iCoop runs acupuncture and cancer treatment centres. They help build better lives.”
Jeroen next headed to Japan. The ICA has 17 members from Japan – and 21 Japanese cooperatives are among the top 300 largest in the 2023 edition of the World Cooperative Monitor. The numbers are impressive: one third of Japan’s population are members of cooperatives and Japanese co-ops have a combined turnover of US$145bn. Yet, there is a demographic time bomb on the horizon. “The ageing population and ongoing urbanisation has led to 9 million empty houses in rural areas,” said Jeroen. “Japanese leaders are aware of and developing new strategies to attract young entrepreneurs, including better farming on a larger scale. Multipurpose cooperatives, worker cooperatives, social service cooperatives, and data platform cooperatives to support AI-driven hyper-personalised benchmarks and insights are all a part of this future”.
He also met with representatives of the Japan Cooperative Alliance (JCA), the apex organisation promoting collaboration in the country, as well as with Chitose Arai (who sits on the boards of the ICA and ICA-AP and chairs the ICA-AP Women's Committee) and Toru Nakaya (President of the JCA).
“The final part of my trip to Japan was an energising webinar with 150 students from the Japanese University Cooperative led by young women,” he said. “They are the future leaders of the impressive Japanese cooperative movement.”
Jeroen’s third stop was Beijing, to meet with the management and leadership of the All-China Federation of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives (ACFSMC). “As a long-standing member of the ICA, ACFSMC shows the world how smallholder farmer cooperatives can be effective on a serious scale,” he said.
ACFSMC represents 12% of China’s agri-food output, works in all China’s provinces and has trading offices and farm units abroad. It includes 191,000 cooperatives and, with close to 200 million members, it is the largest co-op in the world by membership. With its core subsidiary, the China Co-op Group Co, the co-operative conglomerate offers a full-scale service from farm to fork, including on-farm high technology improvements, post-harvest management, cold chain logistics, finance, mutuals & insurance, wholesale, retail, e-commerce, and international trade.
Jeroen visited the Xinfadi wholesale market, a fully owned subsidiary of AFCSMC, which trades 245,000 tonnes of agricultural products every day and is the second-largest wholesale market in the world. “The benefits to farmers are substantial, with 60% of sales value, good profit sharing, and membership empowerment,” he said. “At our Global Conference in New Delhi, ACFSMC will contact colleagues to strengthen cooperation among cooperatives around the world.”
Final stop: India! Jeroen’s first time in New Delhi as leader of the ICA was “a true rite of passage into the Indian cooperative ecosystem.” he said.
He first met with the management of Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Limited under the leadership of Dr U.S. Awasthi. “The ICA is forever grateful to IFFCO to co-host our upcoming Global Cooperative Conference,” he said. “Special thanks to Dr Santosh Shukla and his team for making it all possible.”
Jeroen also met with ICA board member Aditya Yadav, who Douglas describes as “a millennial leader who was born in a family of welfarists and cooperators, and who wants to promote cooperatives and represent cooperators across generations and geographies.” He is now a member of the Indian Parliament.
“I also had the honour to meet Dr Ashish Kumar Bhutani, Secretary to the Ministry of Cooperation of the Government of India, who is giving his full support to our endeavours here, as a great promoter of the 220 million Indians who are active members in the 800,000 cooperatives. The numbers are staggering. We organised a press conference and the conference became a trending topic!”
The visit was crowned with a welcome dinner hosted by ICA-AP and a business meeting the following day on the future of cooperatives with Shri Dileep Sanghani, President of National Cooperative Union of India (NCUI).
Jeroen visited the NCUI office and “expressed his deep interest in engaging with the leaders of the Indian cooperative movement, as well as representatives from the diverse network of ICA members in India,” said an NCUI spokesperson. “This meeting provided a platform for rich discussions on strengthening cooperative efforts and promoting global partnerships.”
The closing event was a visit to Balu Iyer and his team at the ICA-AP office.
“We had constructive dialogue in defining the 2026-2030 strategy as a core implementing partner to the UN's last five years of the SDG era. Luckily, at the office I was also able to meet with Mirai Chatterjee, leader of SEWA Cooperative Federation which represents 3 million women from the informal economy.”
Jeroen’s last stop in India was Mumbai, the capital of finance & banking, where he met with Subrahmanyam Bhima, chair of the International Cooperative Banking Association (ICBA - an ICA sectoral organisation) and board member of the ICA.
Mumbai is also the city of Bollywood – and here Douglas had the opportunity to speak with Shyam Benegal, a pioneer Indian cinema who also has a strong focus on cooperatives. Benegal produced the acclaimed movie Manthan (The Churn), which will be shown at the conference.
Jeroen added: “Many thanks to Balu Iyer, Shivali Sarna, and the whole ICA Asia and Pacific team for support during my visit. It has convinced me more than ever that the cooperative movement in India will drive the country as well as the entire region towards an economy that works for all.
“We are putting together a very inspiring programme with speakers from all over the world. We have the best hosts we could dream of in IFFCO with the support of the 18 ICA Indian members, so I invite the whole cooperative world and beyond to join us at the Bharat Mandapam in November to take part. There is ample space for several thousands of participants, to express at the ICA Expo your pride, meet and inspire, exchange and learn, for business, contracts, and promising innovations!”
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