Agricultural Co-Operation

Abstract

(171) Farm structure and land tenure, discussed in Chapters 3 and 4, represent labor organization in the traditional sense. So far, it has been simply assumed that each farm, large or small, was a productive unit by itself, and only the interchange of manpower between large and small farms was discussed. It was mentioned, however, that sometimes large farms may be composed of a number of co-ordinated cells, with some functions performed independently in each cell. This may of course be difficult to distinguish from a system v/here formally independent nuclei (small farms) have a set of functions or services in common. The problem may arise in a system of capitalist enterprise, as with certain share-cropping practices in the Mediterranean countries. However, most of these problems refer to the various forms of co-operation. Even when it does not include the work of primary production, co-operation may bind the participants so closely together that their real independence of each other becomes strongly reduced, and their whole pattern of management and decision-making becomes profoundly modified.