The sharing economy

GLOBAL INVESTOR 2.15 — 11
Amul
cooperative
Photos: Page 8/9: bpk / Otto Haeckel, Thomas Wakeman / The People’s History Museum, Manchester / Bridgeman Images, Yaacov Ben Dov​, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel / Bridgeman Images, INTERFOTO / Granger, NYC
Page 10/11: Archivio SECAB Società Cooperativa, Fondazione Memorie Cooperative, Keith Lewis Archive / Alamy Stock Photo, David Falconer / National Archives
Ridesharing
1946
UNITED
STATES
During World War II,
the US government
encouraged ride sharing
to conserve resources
for the war effort. In July
1941, the Office of the
Petroleum Coordinator,
established by Roosevelt,
launched a petroleum
and rubber conservation
campaign asking
drivers to use 30%
less gasoline by various
measures that included
sharing rides. This initial
effort had little impact.
The petroleum industry
then formed a products
conservation committee
that relaunched the
ride-share initiative
through widespread use
of media such as posters.
While the ini tiative’s
success proved hard to
measure, the posters
were widely recognized.
1946
INDIA
Around the time of
Indian independence in
the mid-1900s, small
rural farmers relied on
middlemen to get their
milk to market. The
farmers were frequently
exploited by both the
middlemen and larger
milk contractors, which
set milk prices arbitrarily.
In 1946, in the small
town of Anand, in the
state of Gujarat, farmers
approached independence
leader Sardar
Patel for advice. He
suggested that they
bypass the middlemen
by forming their own cooperative
and supplying
milk directly to the
government-run Bombay
Milk Scheme themselves.
After striking to
show their determination,
the farmers set
up the Kaira District Cooperative
Milk producers
Union Ltd., which at
the time consisted of
two village dairy cooperative
societies and 247
liters of milk. The cooperative
societies proliferated
and gave rise to
a three-tiered structure
comprising dairy cooperative
societies at the
village level, a milk union
at the district level and a
federation of member
unions at the state level.
In 1957, sensitive to
the importance of branding,
social entrepreneur
Verghese Kurien
launched the Anand
Milk Union Ltd. (Amul) to
export the dairy cooperative
idea to other
states. Finally, in 1965
the Indian government
created the National
Dairy Development
Board to replicate the
Amul model. Today, the
Amul cooperative is
the largest milk producer
in the world and
enjoys annual revenues
of over USD 3 billion.