Abstract
Agricultural modernization and intensification have been regarded as a significant way to support agricultural development and improve farm income in China. Agricultural cooperatives have played an important role in promoting the modernization and intensification of Chinese agricultural sector. Given the increasing concerns about environmental harm, however, it still remains unclear whether and the extent to which agricultural cooperatives contributes to reducing environmental impacts of agricultural production. Hence, this study performed an environmental evaluation using life cycle assessment for three different organization forms of grape production in Changli County, Hebei Province, China: smallholder farmers, farmer-owned cooperatives and investor-owned firm-led cooperatives. Then the results of life cycle assessment were monetarized and cost benefit analysis was used to evaluate the economic performance of these three organization forms of grape production. The results demonstrate that investor-owned firm-led cooperatives present an overall improvement in environmental and economic performance with the lowest weighted environmental index (integrating all impact categories into a single score), the highest net profit and the highest total net benefit. The results also show a difference in potential improvement in environmental impacts and economic returns between cooperatives and smallholder farmers. Additionally, the production and application of organic and chemical fertilizer and pesticide have been identified as major contributors to total environmental damage.
Highlights
In recent years, China has witnessed a rapid development of agricultural cooperatives within the context of a wide range of government policies
This study aims to contribute to the scant literature on the assessment of the environmental impact of Chinese agricultural cooperatives by utilizing the Life cycle assessment (LCA) method combined with the Cost benefit analysis (CBA) method
Agricultural cooperatives have been regarded as an important part of the modern agricultural production systems
Summary
China has witnessed a rapid development of agricultural cooperatives within the context of a wide range of government policies. In recent government reports (S1 Table), it has been emphasized that the development of agricultural cooperatives is an outstanding impetus that promotes the stable and healthy development of agriculture in China. By the end of 2016, the total number of cooperatives hit nearly 2.8 million, of which about 130.3 thousand. Environmental and economic performance and agricultural cooperatives. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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