부산대학교 도서관

The district of Thienaba lies in the extreme south of the northern groundzone, about 80 km from Dakar. It is fortunate in having rail and road links. Starting in 1958 the cooperative movement in this district developed very quickly : 13 societies were set up in 1960 and, while no new ones have since been created, the membership has steadily increased (it was officially estimated at 2,252 in 1962, but is certainly now much bigger). The movement is assisted by the Regional Centre for Development Assistance (CRAD) which provides technical staff. Staffing difficulties are being overcome thanks to the establishment in 1962 of a cooperative college in Dakar. Over the last two years efforts have been made to secure better coordi- nation of aid to the cooperative movement by the CRAD, the Senegalese Development Bank (BSD) and the Office for Agricultural Marketing (OCA). The main objective in promoting cooperatives in Senegal was to eliminate the excessive number of avaricious middlemen from groundnut marketing and in this respect a satisfactory result has been achieved in the Thienaba district : by 1962 60 % of the market was controlled by the cooperatives compared with a national average of only 47 %. Control of the market by the cooperatives is in the interest of the state since it can exert its influence on them through the OCA and the BSD. The sale of groundnuts is also an important source of fiscal revenue (6,600 m francs CFA out of a total of 32,000 m in 1962). The state can moreover compel the cooperatives to invest in equipement by blocking a part of the subsides due to members on the tonnage marketed. As for the peasant, he benefits not only from these subsidies (90 c per kilo, less 30 c due to the checkweighman and 25 % blocked by the bank for investment purposes), but also from low-interest loans for provisions, equipment, fertilisers and insecticides. Despite the rapid growth of the cooperatives, private traders still remain active in the market for groundnuts and other produce : nine registered dealers handled 40 % of the district's total tonnage in 1962. This is because the peasants, while obviously preferring the lower rates of interest available from the bank, like to have another source for meeting the expenses incurred on family and religious feasts. The cooperatives are, moreover, still not as efficient as the private traders: in 1963 their marketing were on average 469 frs higher per ton. Nor have they been able to make any headway in other markets : millet, garden produce or livestock, for instance. Attempts to branch out into the sale of consumer goods have also failed. Groundnuts still remain the peasant's almost only cash crop and the failure of the cooperatives to encourage him to diversify means a setback for government policy in this connection. Serious shortcomings in the credit policy of the bank have also inhibited the cooperatives from developing collective forms of production and diversifying crops. The fact is that the bulk of available credit has gone to the most creditworthy, i.e. the richest, peasants. The failure of the cooperatives to promote the collective organisation of production cannot be explained simply by their inefficiency, the lack of trained personnel or the illiteracy of the members. Progress will not be made in this direction until official policy decides clearly how it wishes to see the traditional production structures develop. Nevertheless, efforts to produce more trained personnel for management must be accompanied by basic literacy courses to enable the members to take a more active part in the affairs of the cooperatives. The government is faced with a dilemma regarding the further development of the cooperative movement. For improved marketing and credit operations the need is for bigger societies. For increasing co-operative influence over production, however, the need is for smaller, less anonymous bodies in the management of which the peasants can play a real part. The only solution is probably to let the existing societies concentrate on marketing and credit and to try to promote new production units based on the traditional village. It should not be too readily assumed that the communal solidarity of traditional African society provides a fertile soil for the growth of a modern cooperative movement. The latter is still based on the principles of the Rochdale Pioneers of 1844 who started a democratic organisation of the workers against the exactions of capitalism in the field of consumption. Cooperation in traditional African society was, on the other hand, a spontaneous expression of the need to preserve the human race in conditions of a pre-capitalist subsistence economy. This primitive type of cooperation, based on the family, has however long been in process of disintegration under the successive influence of Islam, colonialism and the introduction of new means of production and a market economy. While the economy is becoming increasingly individualised and there is a revolt against traditional authority, many observers have noted that new forms of cooperation are evolving, particularly among youth groups. These could form the basis of production cooperatives of a new type which could fulfil the double role of liberating the individual from family constraints and of rebuilding on the foundations of traditional village solidarity a collective organisation of economic life. There is however no guarantee of the practicability of such project in a constantly changing society. Account should be taken of experience in other countries (China and Yugoslavia, for example) and it is certain that a programme of collectivisation would be difficult to apply in view of the tensions and inequalities to be found in the Senegalese villages. It could only be carried out progressively in selected regions in the course of the introduction of the land reform provided for by the law of 1964. There too only actual experience would show whether the foregoing theories are based on a correct analysis of the social situation.