Cooperatives come with well-known frailties. In many ways, Campco is no exception. It was set up to serve the interests of areca nut farmers in Karnataka and has had to survive the pulls and pressures of multiple interests being at play.
But Campco is also a really good example of how a cooperative can benefit farmers when it finds creative and purposeful leadership. Thanks to the late Varanashi Subraya Bhat, areca nut farmers learnt the advantages of hedging their bets by also growing pepper and cocoa.
Taking a big leap into addition of value, they also set up a. . .
