SOCIAL NETWORKS – A TOOL FOR COOPERATION OF BULGARIAN AGRICULTURAL PRODUCERS

Abstract

Bulgarian agriculture has gone through many transformations in the last two decades. The concentration of production and the difficult access of smaller farms to forms of public support led to their unequal competitive position. Some owners of such small farms began to seek support and advice from other producers, exchange experiences and organize joint actions. Social networks are also used for these new forms of cooperation, as a popular tool for building groups and communication between their members. The purpose of the present study is to evaluate the models for the application of social networks as a tool for the cooperation of agricultural producers in Bulgaria. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to solve the following tasks: to assess the need for producers to cooperate; to analyze the implemented traditional forms of cooperation in the country, revealing their deficiencies; to consider specific examples of the application of social networks, as a tool for cooperation of producers from the agriculture sector in Bulgaria. Social networks, or social media platforms have been a focus of analysis since their launch and in later years some meta studies and literature reviews have attempted to organize and structure most of the previously done research on the topic (Ali, et al. 2023; Ibrahim, 2022). In these studies, the five main topics of discussion have been: social media, social collaboration, social marketing, social media and crowdfunding, and social media and crowdsourcing. Social media as a tool for crowdsourcing can be used by different stakeholders to share crucial information (Clark, et al., 2023) and in those cases a cooperation among social actors can be built. The negative effects of social media on traditional network-building have also been explored by some authors, that put forward concerns about the differentiation of goals between social media platforms and their userbase, that can lead to degradation of social cohesion (González‐Bailón, et al., 2023). Although being critical, those researchers can’t deny that social media platforms are granting opportunities that would be absent without them. Furthermore, if academics have access to social media analytics tools a more in-depth analysis of information sharing and social impact can be developed (Horng, et al., 2023). The lack of access to such tools for the current research has led to the selection of included observation for the analysis of the application of social networks as a tool for the cooperation of agricultural producers in Bulgaria. Social media interactions remain an understudied topic in the country and its relevance as a cooperation building tool remains to be proven. Key words: agriculture, competitiveness, cooperatives, Internet JEL: J54, D71, D91