From farm to table, food production and distribution is the foundation of health and wellbeing, worldwide. International Cooperative Alliance Director General Jeroen Douglas outlines that cooperatives can ensure food security globally.

“The cooperative movement has its roots in a group of disgruntled consumers in Rochdale, UK, who in the mid-19th century were frustrated at how basic foodstuffs were being bulked out with contaminants like limestone or sawdust to maximise private profit. They leveraged the power of coming together, of doing business fairly, and codified this in a series of values and principles to which today’s cooperatives still adhere, in the food sector, but also retail, housing, energy, health, financial services, technology and education.”

Read the full Reuters piece here: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/why-cooperatives-hold-key-future-food-security–ecmii-2025-10-28/