I recently had lunch with a member of Hansalim. We discussed the past and future of Hansalim and the Life Movement and they said something that I found very interesting.

“The cooperative form is incidental to Hansalim, a coincidence of history.”

I asked what they meant by that and they offered me the following explanation:

Hansalim as a movement selected the cooperative form as a tool to support and achieve their goals. It was a suitable legal structure through which to organize their activities but it was not the sole basis of their ideals.

Reflecting on this, it seems to me that Hansalim’s philosophy is not a cooperative philosophy exactly. It is larger than that. It is movement to realize a distinctive worldview and ecophilosophy which has adopted the cooperative model as it legal structure. Hansalim interacts with the legal structure but its formal and informal organization and activities go well beyond the confines of a typical cooperative model.

Apparently, it has been said of Hansalim that it is not really a cooperative, rather it is an environmental movement (actually it is better to call it a Life movement because its vision is all inclusive). There is some truth to that. In addition to creating an alternative food system, the activities of Hansalim range from environmental campaigning and policy advocacy to academic research. From publishing and education to international aid and local support for the vulnerable. The collective energy and resources of Hansalim’s members is routinely and in myriad ways turned outwards to benefit wider society.

Hansalim’s purpose – reviving food, reviving agriculture, reviving life – seems to go far beyond the seventh cooperative principle of “concern for community”. When understood in the light of Hansalim’s founding philosophy it refers to an inclusive global vision of transformation of our relationships to one another and to nature.

More on this in my next post.