Mapping Cooperative Studies in the New Millenium May 2831, 2003 University of Victoria

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Mapping Co-operative Studies in the New
MilleniumMay 28-31, 2003University of Victoria

• Forestry cooperatives in Québec the challenges
  of diversification and innovation. The case of
  Girardville forestry cooperative
• Par Mario Carrier
• Département daménagement
• Université Laval

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1- Research Project

• Title Cooperative Membership and Globalization
  Creating Social Cohesion through Market
  Relations
• Lenght 2002-2005
• Subsidy Social Sciences Research Council of
  Canada (SSRHC)
• Main researcher Brett Fairbairn
• (University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon)
•  
•  

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Research Objectives

• Specific project objectives are to analyse the
  impact of globalization on membership identities
  and practices in selected communities to
  document the challenges for and responses of
  existing community-based enterprises in
  maintaining relationships with their members and
  stakeholders to assess the potential for new
  forms of member and community relations that
  increase community cohesion and social capital as
  well as reinforcing market success and in light
  of these findings to formulate specific policies
  and recommendations relevant to the interests of
  communities, co-peratives , and governments

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Social cohesion

• Social cohesion is about a question of identities
  or reference to membership
• citizenship in a state
• residency in a geographic community
• participation in an organization
• Participation in a network or a culture

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2- Forestry cooperatives in Québec 

• Rationalization and consolidation in the
  organization of the forestry cooperatives in the
  late seventies
• Onset intervention of the State, in 1977, with
  a policy related to the development of forestry
  cooperatives 
• Grouping of cooperatives and creation of the
  Forestry Cooperatives Assembly of Québec (CCFQ)
  in 1985 

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2- Forestry cooperatives in Québec(continued)

• Turnover increase in the eighties and nineties
  connected notably to government mesures
  facilitating cooperative insertion in the
  silviculture industry
•  
• Cooperatives involvement important at the
  begining of the present decade mainly with wood
  harvesting and silviculture

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2- Forestry cooperatives in Québec(continued)
   Diversification in their activities in the
nineties, mainly in timber production but in
second and third transformation activities as
well, multi-resource management related to
inhabited wooded areas, etc. Out of the 48
forestry cooperatives in Québec in the year 2000,
this remains a hallmark of a minority of them
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Main activities of the forestry cooperatives in
2000
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3- The Girardville Forestry CooperativeDemography
and economy  Girardville and its region in
1996Source Statistique Canada
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The Girardville Forestry Cooperative(continued)

• Historical background
• 1979-85
• Mainly working with black spruce needles and
  branches. These residues served to extract
  essential oils
•  

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The Girardville Forestry Cooperative (continued)

• 1985-
• Performed some work in forestry planning and
  silviculture
• Supplying wood to large companies
• Government decree (1985)
•   Allow the Girardville Forestry Cooperative
  first buyers right at market price for the
  exploitation of resinous wood for the sake of the
  beneficiary in the Saint-Félicien national forest
  and for the execution of works in forestry
  planning and silviculture that would be their
  responsability
•  

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The Girardville Forestry Cooperative (continued)

• 1991-1997
• - Bought a sawmill, together with a large
  forestry enterprise also being at the time their
  main customer in the silviculture and wood
  harvesting fields
•  
• - That venture in the first transformation field
  ended in 1997 at which point they sold their
  share to the above mentionned partner

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The Girardville Forestry Cooperative (continued)

• 1999-2001
• - Creation of a subsidiary the Girardville
  Amérique Forestry Cooperative (CFG Amérique) in
  the city of Saguenay, Québec
•   CFG Amérique is an added value company
  operating in the drying of leafy trees,
  particularly of the poplar (aspen look alike).
  Financing provided by the province for 1.25 M
• 3 types of activities
•     drying
•      transformation (2nd, 3rd, 4th)
•        brokerage

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The Girardville Forestry Cooperative (continued)

• 1999-2001
• - Partnership with the Alta Verapaz Cooperative
  Federation (FEDECO VERA) in Guatemala. Together,
  they created the FORESTAL MAYA GUATEMALA S.A. in
  order to do marketing, commercialization and
  exportation of noble resinous wood from Central
  America
•   This partnership was made possible with the
  cooperation of the Cooperation and International
  development society (SOCODEVI), to which belongs
  the Forestry Cooperatives Assembly of Québec
  (CCFQ) who counts the Girardville Forestry
  Cooperative (CFG) as one of its members

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The Girardville Forestry Cooperative (continued)

• 1999-2001
• Major share holder (81.43 ) of DOMICILEX, a
  residential contractor specializing in
  manufactured homes also located in the city of
  Saguenay, Québec
•  
• Purchase in Roberval (Lac St-Jean), Québec of a
  sawmill specializing in the cut of leafy trees

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The Girardville Forestry Cooperative (continued)

• 1999-2001
• A blueberry farm project in the MRC of Maria
  Chapdelaine (Lac St-Jean), Québec with a
  harvesting surface of 200 hectares in alternance,
  meaning 100 hectares per year for a potential
  production of 150 000 to 200 000 pounds of
  blueberries

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Girardville Forestry Cooperative and its
subsidiariesRealizations 1985-2001
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Girardville Forestry Cooperative and its
subsidiariesRealizations 1985 - 2001
 
 
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4- TheorySource HOLLINGSWORTH, J. Rogers,
Robert BOYER (1997), Coordination of economic
actors and social systems of production, in
HOLLINGSWORTH, J. Rogers, Robert BOYER, (eds),
Contemporary Capitalism. The embeddedness of
institutions, Cambridge, University Press, 1997,
pp.1-47.

• The mechanisms of economic coordination in
  contemporary capitalism
• 2 axes
• Power distribution
• Market
• Hierarchy
•  Action motives
• Research of our own interest
• Reciprocity and obligation principles

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4- Theory (continued) Source HOLLINGSWORTH,
BOYER (1997), ibid

• Many forms of economic coordination
• Markets and communities horizontal dimension
• Private and public hierarchies vertical
  dimension
• Associations and networks hybrid forms
• Four levels in society where we can find these
  forms of coordination
•        Regional level
•        National level
•        Transnational level
•        Global level

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4- Theory (continued)Source HOLLINGSWORTH,
BOYER (1997), ibid

• The analyst work consists in specifying on the
  scale of the economy how the institutions behave
  in order to coordinate the actors in the 4 levels
  of society
•   The organizations are inserted in complex
  environments from which are born social systems
  of production that put pressures on their
  behaviours
•   These social systems of production are a major
  factor in understanding the behaviours and the
  economic performances of organizations
•   We have to know how the State and the many
  coordinating mechanisms are linked to the various
  social systems of production

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5- Summary - Prominent facts

• This organization is part of the production
  system that forms the forestry industry. The
  development of this cooperative cannot be severed
  of its ties to a number of different coordinating
  mechanisms which are
• the State
• the large forestry industry private firms
• its associations (CCFQ)
• its networks (SOCODEVI)
• its communities (Girardville, Roberval, Saguenay)

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Summary - Prominent facts (continued)

• With the emergence of CFG Amérique
• The Gerardville Cooperative has taken on as an
  objective the integration of all the aspects of
  forestry development from planting to
  manufacturing
• It went from being local (Girardville and MRC
  Maria Chapdelaine) to regional and national
  (Roberval, Saguenay and other regions of Québec)

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Summary - Prominent facts (continued)

• With the creation of FORESTAL MAYA GUATEMALA
• Girardville Forestry Cooperative went
  international
• State support
• Legal supervision of partnership with the large
  organization
• Financial support for the creation of CFG
  Amérique
•  

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Summary - Prominent facts (continued) 

• CFG avoids conflicts with the large organization
• It seperates the services activities to large
  organization (silviculture, reafforestation,
  supplying) from the business activities
• For example, it works with the aspen essence
  that is the least coveted from the large
  organization
• The services activities work toward the first
  accruing of capital in order to move on to other
  phases of development

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Summary - Prominent facts (continued)

• In a region such as Saquenay-Lac-Saint-Jean,
  where the development of natural resources by the
  large organization is present in the first
  transformation sector, the CFG case can be
  regarded as a form of entrepreneurship replacing
  the individual entrepreneurship that has much
  difficulty thriving in the transformation sector
  belonging to a regional economy regulated by the
  large organization