Visit from the Seikatsu Club Consumers' Co-operative, Japan

Colloquium on Sustainability and Food Security: An Exchange of Perspectives

A Visit to the University of Victoria and the BC Institute of Co-operative Studies (BCICS) by the Seikatsu Club

When: Monday September 8, 2008
Time: 1:30 to 4:30
Location: Cadboro Commons – McKenzie Room

• 1:30 Welcome  - Ana Maria Peredo – Director of BCICS
• 1:45 Presentation by members of the Seikatsu Club followed by question
• 2:30 Presentation – Martha McMahon, Sociology
• 2:50 Refreshment Break
• 3:05 Presentation – Lee Fuge - Manager - FoodRoots Distributors Co-op and Kezia Cowtan - FoodRoots board of directors, Executive Director Lifecycles
• 3:40 SEHub Presentation – Food Security work – Ian MacPherson
• 3:50 Open discussion question and answer period

This is an open invitation. Please RSVP if you can to joybcics@uvic.ca or 853-3208

The Seikatsu Club

The Seikatsu Club is one of the most interesting co-operatives in the world. It was formed in 1965 by housewives concerned about the quality of the milk in local stores and has since grown to include 230,000 households in eighteen co-operatives that are associated in a central union. Most of the food sold through the co-operatives is delivered in special vans to neighbourhood groups of 8-12 families called hans.

Seikatsu is particularly concerned about the quality of the food its members eat, about reducing the costs of goods by eliminating advertising, and by presenting a limited but adequate choice of quality goods. Having established close relationships with farmers and farm organisations the Seikatsu Club has special programmes to deliver high quality, organically produced milk, poultry and pork products to its members. Members can choose to go to the countryside and talk to farmer suppliers about their crops and the issues confronting rural societies. This procedure is part of what the club calls a "mass audit" approach, in which members play a significant role in appraising the co-operative's daily activities.

Seikatsu has undertaken special campaigns to reduce the use of soaps harmful to the environment and it has sponsored candidates in local elections who are interested in enhancing environmental practices in communities and resisting the development of genetically modified foods. The club has been successful in placing 150 people, many of them women, in local councils and assemblies.

Women form about 99 percent of the memberships of the club and many of the board members of the local co-operatives and the central organisation are women. The club has undertaken special programmes to address issues confronting Japanese women. It has, for example, organised 150 worker co-operatives, (called collectives in Japan because there is no law covering working co-operatives), most of which employ women in service industries. In recognition of its outstanding record in environmental, business and social areas, the Seikatsu Club received the Right Relationship award, the "alternative Nobel Prize," in 1989.

[For more about the Seikatsu Club, visit our library or see Dr. Ian MacPherson's recent publication "Responding, Remembering, Restructuring".]

Visitors’ List
Seikatsu Club Consumers’ Co-operative
2008 Canada/US Mission

(Mr.) Yoshiyuki Fukuoka, Head of Delegation, Executive Director, Seikatsu Club Consumers’ Co-operative Union

(Ms) Yuriko Itoh, Standing Director, Seikatsu Club Consumers’ Co-operative Tokyo

(Mr.) Hiroshi Matsumoto, Director of the Policy Coordinating Division, Seikatsu Club Consumers’ Co-operative Kanagawa

(Mr.) Tadasu Miyoshi, Manager of the Mutual Business Division, Seikatsu Club Consumers’ Co-operative Union

(Mr.) Katsuyoshi Yonekura, Executive Director, Policy Research Institute for the Civil Sector

(Ms) Yuko Wada, interpreter, International Coordinator, Policy Research Institute for the Civil Sector

Seikatsu Club Consumers’ Co-operative Union
Address: Welship Higashi Shinjuku , 6-24-20 Shinjuku, Shinju Ku, Tokyo, Japan 
Tel:         (03)-5285-1771
Fax:        (03)-5285-1839
E-mail:    info@seikatsuclub.coop
URL:      http: //www.seikatsuclub.coop/

Policy Research Institute for the Civil Sector
Address:4-1-6-3F Akatsutsumi, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 156-0044, Japan
Tel:    +81-3-3325-7861
Fax:    +81-3-3325-7955
E-mail:    civil@prics.net
URL:    http://www.prics.net

Dr Martha McMahon
Sociology

Martha McMahon's current research focus is on gender and environment, small-scale farming and local food. While attending to social processes such as globalization, international trade and regulatory regimes, she describes her approach to sociology as critically reflective symbolic interactionism. This approach takes both actors' meanings and social constraints as being central in explaining social life. Thus, in doing sociology, she attends to how relationships, whether soco-economic or with the non-human world are reproduced, negotiated and transformed in the everyday meaningful interactions of people whether in bureaucracies, on farms, in their homes or in the courts or grocery stores. She also works within the areas of domestic violence and gender and the body. Her book, Engendering Motherhood was awarded the 1996 American Sociological Association Sex and Gender Section Award for Distinguished Scholarship on Gender.  

Recent Publications:  

McMahon, M. (2005). Engendering Organic Farming. Feminist Economics 11(3): 134-140.
McMahon, M. & E. Pence (2003). Making Social Change: Reflections on Individual and Institutional Advocacy with Women Arrested for Domestic Violence. Journal of Violence Against Women, Vol. 9, no.1, pp. 47-74.
McMahon, M. (2002). Resisting Globalization: Women Organic Farmers and Local Food Systems. Canadian Woman Studies, Vol. 21/22, no. 4.1, pp. 203-206.
McMahon, M. From the Ground Up: Ecofeminism & Ecological Economics. Ecological Economics, 20, pp. 163-173.

Lee Fuge
Local food security activist and co-operator, Lee has worked with members of many local organizations to put food issues on the agenda of community politicians and policy makers. She works closely with farmers, distributors, community activists, and representatives of community and municipal organizations to promote and encourage support for local food systems. Presently Lee is manager of FoodRoots Distributors Co-operative which hosts small pocket markets in over a dozen locations around Victoria – including the university campus.

Kezia Cowtan
Kezia is Executive Director of LifeCycles, a non-profit organization dedicated to cultivating awareness and initiating action around food, health, and urban sustainability in the Greater Victoria community. LifeCycles’mandate is to work proactively promoting and creating personal, shared and community gardens, research, and educational activities and youth skills development programs. Through partnerships they seek to strengthen individual, community and global health.