The Government has decided to restore partially an old institution which the SPPF unceremoniously closed down just after the coup d’etat in 1977. On 23rd July it quietly published an order in the Official Gazette establishing once again the “Seychelles Farmers Marketing Co-operative”. Unlike its forebear, however, the new co-operative is a creature of the government not that of the farmers.
The original “Seychelles Farmers Marketing Co-operative” was launched in 1971, the year the Democratic Party formed the first self government of
In fact it was the DP Government that moved quickly to protect the local farmers. As the number of tourists arriving rose from 3175 in 1971 to 54,500 by 1977, it was clear that the local agriculture needed to adapt fast to take advantage of the demand being created at a fast pace. Local agriculture, which had hitherto been geared to the production of cash crops such as copra, cinnamon and patchouli, was slow in adapting to the fast new opportunity.
To assist farmers the DP government set-up a section within the Ministry of Agriculture called the Marketing Division, to regulate food imports and to assist farmers to take advantage of the new demands created by the burgeoning tourism industry. The new division was also responsible for the government’s land settlement scheme where tenants were screened, given training in improved farming methods, before being allocated a farm, with housing and basic social services.
At the centre of the governments’ effort to assist the farmers was the Seychelles Farmers Marketing Co-operative, which was a voluntary organisation set up by the farmers themselves. The co-operative managed its own affairs in accordance with the 1971 Co-operative Societies Act. By 1975, the co-operative had become a significant organisation helping and protecting the interest of the farmers, many of them new entrants into agriculture. That year Barclays Bank donated SR1, 000,000 towards the construction of a warehouse on land donated by the government on the new reclamation in
After SPUP took power by force in 1977, the new socialist regime of Albert Rene nationalised the assets of co-operative and disbanded the organisation, even before the one-party state was declared official and the SPPF the only political party allowed in it. The warehouse was turned over first to a parastatal called the Seychelles Commodities Company (Seycom) run by SPUP zealots. In a few short years, Seycom became insolvent and was replaced by the Seychelles Marketing Board (SMB), a new state enterprise, to be run by two young men - Mukesh Valabhji and Glenny Savy. SMB was given the monopoly to import fruits, vegetables and meat which operated initially from the vegetable warehouse until posh offices were constructed along the
In February 1987, the one-party state passed a new law called the Co-operatives Act, which formally abrogated the 1971 Co-operative Societies Act. Under the new Act, a co-operative could only be set up by the Minister not by its members. In fact, under the Act the co-operative exists even before its members are known while the Minister is the one who appoints the “first management” committee. The purpose of the whole exercise was to give the semblance of freedom of association, which Mr Rene relegated to a preamble to the one-party state constitution. In effect any “co-operative” became a subsidiary of the SPPF – which under the one-party state was the only organisation effectively allowed to exist.
This is the same Act today, under which the current Government has recreated the “Seychelles Farmers Marketing Co-operative”. It is understood that the Government will hand over the warehouse currently called the Fruit and Vegetables division of SMB to the “co-operative”, whose chairman, it appears, has already been chosen. Naturally, he is someone approved by the party. Plus ça change plus c’est la même chose.
