Chitsvachirimurutsoka Cooperative Society

After the end of Zimbabwe’s war of liberation in 1980, 22 ex-freedom fighters came together to start a new life by founding a cooperative farm called the Chitsvachirimurutsoka Cooperative Society. For them, this was a new battle: “a battle for economic independence.” The founding members of Chitsvachirimurutsoka were able to raise the money to buy land, equipment, and farming tools by combining their demobilization allowances—sums of money given to former fighters by the government, amounting to approximately $128 in US dollars a month per person. Using traditional skills, members began crop and livestock production. They grew maize, sugar beans, and sunflowers.

The first three years were challenging. The members did not have the business skills to efficiently manage the farm. To make matters worse, bad droughts ruined the crops, leaving little to harvest and the farm in debt. This made life very difficult, and the cooperative lost three members who abandoned the project.

Members actively participate in decision-making and work in positions that make sense for them

Chitsvachirimurutsoka made it through these challenging early days, living up to the meaning of its name: “There is no gain without sweat.” Management of the cooperative was improved through business training given to the members. While drought is an ongoing issue, Chitsvachirimurutsoka has learned to manage it. As a result, it has had many profitable years and has invested proceeds in improving the living standards of members and developing of the wider community. For Chitsvachirimurutsoka, contributing to the community is an essential part of being a cooperative. Over the last few decades, members have dug boreholes to provide clean water, built and repaired roads, started a preschool on the farm, paid for funerals, and supported sick and orphaned people in their community, in addition to many other contributions.

A key pillar of the cooperative’s mission is to solve food insecurity. Every day at the farm, from seven in the morning to seven at night, members sell poultry, vegetables, and other products at affordable prices. Most of the customers come from nearby Epworth, a settlement of about 300,000 people, many of whom are poor. Chitsvachirimurutsoka also supplies food to several community institutions including a cafeteria, some schools, and local clinics.

Chitsvachirimurutsoka’s general meeting, which occurs three or four times a year, is the supreme authority guiding the cooperative’s actions. Here, members make major decisions such as approving by-laws, regulations, codes of conduct, and the action plan and budget for each year. The general meeting elects the Management Committee, the policy-making body of the cooperative which oversees budgets and plans to ensure the cooperative is on track to meet its goals. The committee members serve for three years (but can be removed if they are not performing well).

The chairperson of the committee appoints a coordinator to implement resolutions passed at the annual general meeting held in December. This coordinator reports to the Management Committee and must be approved by a majority of members. Once appointed, it is the coordinator’s responsibility to ensure that the cooperative brings in enough revenue and keeps costs low enough to reach the net profit goals set by the committee. The coordinator manages all other cooperative members. In this way, Chitsvachirimurutsoka has a traditional business structure with the coordinator as the boss, except during general meetings when the members are collectively in charge.

However, Chitsvachirimurutsoka is not like a private company where a small number of shareholders make major decisions and control all the profit. Every member of Chitsvachirimurutsoka Cooperative Society holds shares in the enterprise, so that each receives dividends when the co-op profits or shares in its losses. Members actively participate in decision-making and work in positions that make sense for them. Women are treated the same way as men, and there is much consideration for children, dependents, and disabled people.

The success of Chitsvachirimurutsoka and other cooperatives of the early 1980s has encouraged the formation of hundreds of cooperatives in Zimbabwe. In keeping with one of the international cooperative principles, “cooperation among cooperatives,” these cooperatives started to organize themselves at the district level, where they came together to share information, ideas, experiences, and resources, including a revolving loan fund, a machinery pool, and bulk buying and marketing arrangements. The same happened at provincial and national levels, with cooperatives pooling together transportation and group insurance, as well as standardized accounting and auditing to assist the members and their initiatives. Though later economic and political crises would hit the cooperative movement hard, these early advances should be celebrated for their democratic and grassroots development model.