Alternative Structural Approaches to Farm Bargaining: A Cooperative Systems Model

Abstract

TRUCTURAL considerations of organization for bargaining are among the key, yet least understood, determinants of successful negotiating efforts. As structural change in the economic organization of American agriculture points to the prevalence of large-scale voluntary organizations, the structural attributes of various organizational forms and organizational interrelationships become of increasing importance. Basic questions arise about relationships of producer members to their organizations and about the interaction of various organization forms in pursuit of income maximization on behalf of farm operators. At issue is whether these large-scale organizations can provide collective goods to members and whether members are the ultimate recipients of the benefits of group-oriented behavior in these organizations. Farm bargaining, the direct confrontation and interaction of pressure groups and firms (or government) in the determination of prices and other terms of trade, has become the focal point of contemporary farmer movements in the 1960's and is destined to become a working part of farm marketing in the 1970's. Agricultural pressure groups involved in the process of bargaining include cooperative business organizations and professional associations (individual and general farm) that are both single and cross-commodity in nature. Debate over the attributes of the centralized versus federated form of cooperative organizations has been renewed recently in the dairy industry with the evolution of multimarket combines. Spokesmen for the dairy industry conclude that the centralized organization form (with direct membership in the regional or national organization) is most appropriate for bargaining. Structural issues among general farm organizations were not a concern so long as government programs were a major determinant of farm income levels. The federated county-state-national structure was uniquely adapted to lobbying activities with administrative and legislative bodies. With deemphasis of government farm programs and rise in popularity of collective bargaining, professional associations such as the National Farmers' Union, National Grange, and American Farm Bureau Federation have undertaken a reappraisal of their organizational dilemma. To date only the AFBF has initiated structural change, and then only through a parallel federated structure-the AAMA-that re-