(a) That California consumers enjoy the economic benefits of a substantial cooperative business sector. An estimated one million people participate in a diversity of consumer cooperatives that includes, but is not limited to, housing, child care, food, insurance and health care, student, rural electric, senior citizen, cable, and funeral cooperatives, as well as employee-owned arts and crafts cooperatives and other small business cooperatives. Credit unions, as financial cooperatives, provide services to over 6.2 million members. In addition, over 40,000 California farmers belong to agricultural cooperatives which produce and market over six billion dollars ($6,000,000,000) of food and fiber products annually.