The association has the rights to run the Wisconsin University developed course in New Zealand and Australia and the trust provides funding which keeps the cost of the two-day course at $250/head, instead of $895.
Trust-funded courses have previously been held in Invermay, Otago, reflecting the Dunedin headquarters of the meat company PPCS, which seed-funded the trust; but this year’s venue was Ashburton.
“The company realised a long time ago there was a governance vacuum looming and we needed to increase the pool of people coming on to fill the governance roles in the agricultural sector in general,” says Reese Hart, a former chairman of Silver Fern Farms – or rather PPCS, as the meat processing cooperative was called before 2008.
The solution was the trust, of which he and former PPCS chair Robbie Burnside are trustees. But while PPCS seed-funded the trust with “a lump sum”, the subsidised courses are kept open to all with agricultural links. “We recognise a lot of different people in the agricultural industry support a lot of different co-ops.”
Nonetheless, of the 27 on this year’s course – a couple more than normal owing to over-subscription – 17 or 18 had “connections” with Silver Fern Farms, he adds.
Among them was west Waikato sheep and beef farmer Sally Lee. “I found it really good,” Lee told Rural News at the conclusion of the course. “It was a relaxed atmosphere and everybody participated and shared their stories.”
Having done other governance courses Lee says the main thing she gained from this one was “an awareness and understanding of cooperative thinking.” “I’ve done some Institute of Directors training but this was at a different level.”
Bruce Murphy, whose family runs a multi-farm dairy business in South Canterbury supplying Fonterra, says the main things he took from the course were a better understanding of cooperative business structures and how to write effective policy at a board level. Murphy was on the course having won one of three CRT Farmlands sponsored places.
Course facilitator Peter Harris also highlighted the importance of cooperative boards setting clear policies for management to follow and report against. But no matter how good the policies, events would sometimes expose gaps. “When something happens that exposes a gap in the policy, deal with it,” he told delegates in a closing session.
Later, speaking to Rural News, he stressed the difference between cooperative and corporate governance. “There are quite significant differences. The main one is the owner directors of a cooperative have a continued interest in the service the cooperative provides… their interest is both financial and personal.”
As a consequence cooperative boards would tend to be more involved or have a greater input to management matters than a corporate board.
Asked whether there’s a risk cooperatives abuse members’ loyalty in taking their business for granted while offering outside parties better deals, Harris warns that boards and management doing that play a dangerous game.
“You can’t take loyalty for granted. If you’re not responsive to member-users’ needs they will take their business elsewhere. You’ve got to stick to the cooperative principles. If you don’t, you’ll lose member loyalty.”
