Coffee Co‐operatives in Malawi: Building Resilience Through Innovation

Abstract

This article focuses on the role played by innovation in the context of coffee co-operatives. It shows how interconnected forms of innovation contribute to co-operative resilience. Data was collected from the largest coffee co-operative Union in Malawi and illustrates how coffee co-operatives have innovated in order to cope with organizational and market constrains. We identify four areas of innovation: sustainable technologies, development of market niches, women's inclusion and business diversification. The combination of these forms of innovation contributes to co-operative resilience in different degrees, the article also analyzes how innovation is influenced and driven by co-operative's values and principles and by partnerships with national and international actors.In this article we seek to answer the following question: what role and to what extent does innovation support co-operative resilience in Malawi? We address this question by analyzing the unexplored and largest coffee co-operative Union in Malawi.Co-operatives are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity (ICA 2013). The principles that guide cooperatives across the world include open membership, democratic member control, member economic participation, autonomy and independence, education, training and information, co-operation among co-operatives and concern for the community. These are the values and principles upon which Malawian co-operatives have been set up.Co-operatives are typically affected by a conflict between efficiency and equality which in turn generates a trade-off between innovation and inclusion (World Bank 2008). It has been acknowledged that the participatory and inclusive nature of co-operatives may enable a fluent flow of information between members by reducing information asymmetries and fostering a more innovative environment within society (Stiglitz 2009).Co-operatives have had a mixed history in the developed and developing world (Vorley and Proctor 2008). However, the recent economic and financial global crises has put in evidence the remarkable degree of resilience shown by co-operatives, they were able to foster social inclusion and development (Birchall and Hammond Ketilson 2009, Chaves and Monzon 2012, Bouchard 2012, FAO 2013. The recent economic crises of 2008 and 2009 have revealed the intrinsic connection between resilience and innovation, a connection that has been largely underexplored in the context of co-operatives in the developing world. In this sense, this article offers one of the very first analyses of coffee co-operative resilience in Malawi.On the one hand, resilience is the capacity for response, which in the context of organizations like co-operatives translates as the ability to cope with shocks and crises (Mamouni Limnios and Mazzarol 2011). On the other hand, innovation in its most basic definition is about 'new and/or significant improvements to existing goods and services' (OECD/Eurostat 2005). Resilience and innovation translate into acti...

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