The role of cooperation in the socio-economic development of rural areas: history and modernity

Abstract

The article is devoted to the history of legislative regulation of agricultural cooperation in Russia. The authors emphasize that agricultural cooperation is in demand due to the fact that agriculture has always played an important role in our country. In addition, cooperation has a rich unifying potential, which can be used in different conditions and situations. The experience of cooperative development in the early twentieth century is analyzed. It was noted that at that time, agricultural cooperation did not play a significant role in comparison with other forms of cooperation. The experience of legislative regulation of agricultural cooperation in the period of the new economic policy has been studied. It is noted that the Soviet government attached special importance to the development of this form of cooperation, saw in it the method of collectivization of agriculture. Agricultural cooperation also played other functions, giving out loans to the population and doing educational work. Members of agricultural cooperatives received benefits through collective processing of goods and their sale, as well as through wholesale purchases. Also in the article, the bases of modern legislative regulation of agricultural cooperation are shown. The principles on which modern agricultural cooperation is built and which are fixed in the current legislation are considered. The article concludes that agricultural cooperation has a great potential, it allows small producers to compete more successfully with large agroholdings, helps to fight the process of monopolization in the agricultural sector. But one legislative definition of the legal norms governing the creation and operation of cooperatives is not sufficient for its full development. Agricultural cooperation needs state support, both financial in the form of tax incentives, and ideological. We need propaganda of ideas and ideals of the cooperative movement.