Role Of Agricultural Cooperatives Research Articles

Social sustainability of Brazilian biodiesel: The role of agricultural cooperatives

Biofuels have been criticized in academic and activist circles not only for their environmental consequences but also for their social impacts on food availability and on small-scale family farming. Meanwhile (global) initiatives and policies have been developed to stimulate “sustainable biofuels”. Brazil – a frontrunner in production and use of biofuels – aimed to combine biodiesel production with rural development. The biodiesel policy implemented in 2004 had two main objectives: to advance biodiesel as a transportation fuel and to foster the social inclusion of family farmers through participation in the biodiesel chain. Although participation of family farmers was low in the beginning, it increased substantially after a 2009 policy change that gave cooperatives a more prominent role. We analyze how, why and to what extent cooperatives are involved in integrating family farmers into the biodiesel chain and what this means for the social sustainability of biodiesel, taking the northeast state of Bahia as a case study area. The findings show that through the biodiesel policy, cooperatives—until then a marginal phenomenon in northern Brazil—increased their membership, were empowered and contributed to the economic development of a significant group of family farmers. However, these family farmers have not been substantially included in the biodiesel production chain itself. The biodiesel policy functions as a catalyst for rural (economic) development in which the cooperatives seem to achieve what governments were unable to achieve: the integration of specific categories of family farmers into agrarian development. Subsistence family farmers, in particular, have not been able to profit from this policy-driven, “market-oriented,” rural development model. Hence, it can be questioned whether this policy has made biodiesel more socially sustainable.

The Role of Cooperatives and CSR: The Case of the French Agricultural Sector

Changes in French environmental legislation since 2010 require major companies to establish a corporate social responsibility policy. Although very small, small, and medium-sized companies are not as yet required to comply with these obligations, some of them consider that it is necessary to develop provisions addressing this concept, and even to fully embrace them. In view of the particular character of VSEs and SMEs, which are informal in nature, characterized by intuitive strategies, and have limited access to information, this reconnaissance study examines the role of agricultural cooperatives in disseminating information about CSR policies and implementing them in the industry. A preliminary series of qualitative interviews shows that these organizations are taking responsibility for assimilating the regulations in order to prepare their members, and that the existence of certifications is useful in this regard. The reconnaissance nature of the study has enabled us to formulate two research propositions, to be tested by future investigations.

The role of agricultural cooperatives in sustaining the wheat diversity and productivity: the case of southern Italy

We hypothesize that institutions such as agricultural cooperatives influence regional levels of variety diversity through input supply, processing or marketing functions. This diversity can also affect yield, a partial measure of crop productivity. We test these hypotheses with data from southern Italy, a mega-diversity spot and centre of diversity for durum wheat. Cooperatives in the southern regions of Italy process farmers’ harvests of durum wheat into bread, label it, and sell it locally. In this relatively marginalized region of the country, cooperatives enable farmers to capture more of the value of the final product and reduce marketing costs. To test the hypothesis, we apply a two-stage estimation approach with a Cobb-Douglas production function and panel data analysis. Findings suggest that the density of cooperatives in a region is associated with greater spatial diversity in wheat varieties grown, and that, over a 14-year period, this diversity positively affected crop yields.

Why are cooperatives important in agriculture? An organizational economics perspective

Abstract:This paper develops an organizational economics explanation for agricultural cooperatives by building upon the transaction cost theory of family farms. According to this theory, the importance of family farms in Western agriculture is a result of the low feasibility of hierarchical organization in agricultural production due to supervision and monitoring difficulties. This paper argues that the transaction cost-economizing effect of family farms has a price in the form of their limited ability to realize economies of scale and to develop market power comparable to that of their up- and downstream trading partners. The role of agricultural cooperatives is shown to help overcome these limitations in order to take advantage of the transaction-cost economizing properties of family farms. This explanation of agricultural cooperatives is sector-specific in the sense that it traces the benefits of cooperative organization back to the organizational attributes of agricultural production.

Endogenous Membership in Mixed Duopsonies

Although the role of agricultural cooperatives is well known to many practitioners and economists around the world, in many countries cooperatives are facing new challenging opportunities and problems. Due to the consolidation in the industries upstream and downstream to the agricultural sector, cooperatives are regarded as one possible way to enhance welfare for small producers (Economist). Either in the form of common facilities or through collective bargaining, cooperatives have the potential to improve the terms of trade for their members and contribute to better livelihood in rural areas. However, cooperatives are also facing new difficulties, due to the globalization of markets and the competition with investor-owned firms (IOF). In many countries, ideology is no longer a strong enough reason for farmers to join cooperatives, and more competitive markets imply that this decision must be based mainly on economic terms. In addition, cooperatives have to deal with heterogeneous membership: members may differ in many aspects, namely size of their operations, abilities, and quality of their products. Given these differences, the functioning of the cooperative in the day-to-day operations may become more difficult, and some members may find it more convenient to look for other opportunities and market outlets for their commodities.

Capital Market Innovations and Agricultural Cooperatives

The focus of this Principal Paper Session is on both innovation in the capital markets and innovation involving agricultural cooperatives. The most important aspect of this session and the papers in it is to assess the implications for the risk-mitigation role of agricultural cooperatives, given the innovation that is occurring in the capital markets. In addition, the risk-mitigation assessment is linked directly to the structure of the agricultural cooperative. Developments in insurance securitization provide much of the basis for renewed enthusiasm about risk-mitigation potentials involving agriculture. The three principal papers as a set provide an interesting and eclectic view of risk mitigation applied to agricultural cooperatives. The article by Skees provides an overview of the innovations that are emerging in the capital markets. The article by Zeuli discusses potential applications and assesses the usefulness of these innovations to agricultural cooperatives or their members who might apply them. She briefly discusses several examples of new-generation cooperatives (NGCs) that could potentially benefit from the application of specific capital market innovations. Finally, the article by Black and Barnett provides a case example of three NGCs that process sugar beets. Black and Barnett, among other things, analyze a time series on sugar beet yield per planted acre to evaluate a crop yield insurance instrument.

Growth of Vegetable Production in Asahikawa, Hokkaido

The economic conditions of Japanese agriculture have been transformed in the past ten years. These transformation are shown in food distribution and food consumption, in addition to farm production which is the main subject of traditional agricultural geography. And the influence of the former upon the latter is not small. Although a large number of studies have been made on agricultural geography, especially farm production, little is known about the importance of the former. The aim of this paper is to clarify the role of food distribution in the growth of agricultural production by adopting the food system approach.The food system approach has been discussed since the latter half of the 1980's in agricultural geography of the West and in the agricultural economics of Japan. What has to be noted is that this approach deals with agricultural input, product processing, food distribution, and food consumption in addition to farm production as the system intermediated by food. And the same approach can hold in a geographical system. But only a few studies have so far been made using geographical or regional systems in agricultural geography of Japan. Therefore the food system approach is beneficial in examing the role of food distribution and in introducing the methods of geographical systems into agricultural geography of Japan.This paper is concerned with vegetable production in Nishikagura, Asahikawa-shi, Hokkaido. The preceding studies have observed that Hokkaido is disadvantageous for vegetable cultivation. But on recent years vegetable production of Hokkaido has been increasing rapidly. Especially Asahikawa is a newly expanding district for shipping to Honshu. On account of these reasuns Asahikawa is selected as case study area.The following results were obtained: First, two marketing strategies are considered to have important roles from the observation of the grown process of vegetable production in this case. One is shipping on a period of short supply and the other is selection of markets. Little attention has been given to these marketing strategies beside farm production. But the marketing strategies promotes the growth of production in Hokkaido which would otherwise be disadvantageous for vegetable cultivation. This accounts for the importance of distribution. And the agricultural cooperatives in Asahikawa have played an active role of these strategies. To put it another way this is the geographical system linking rural and urban (production and consumption) and it is intermedeated by foods.Second, the author investigated farm side items for this growth of production. From the viewpoint of the physical environment, the next two factors became clear: farming methods for various kinds of vegetables, and the long range of the shipping period. The former was introduced to avoid injury from continuous corpping and the latter depends on the differences of soil and temperature in Nishikagura. But these are not unusual cases. Indeed the same observation applies to other districts. It is better to say that agricultural cooperatives have utilized the natural resources around Nishikagura under today's changeable conditions on the agricultural economy. The cost of transportation to Honshu has been a big problem for agriculture in Hokkaido. But the price margin between Hokkaido and Honshu is so much that it deals successfully with the problem of remoteness. However the shortage of agricultural labour in Asahikawa will be a difficult problem in the future and people have not found the solution to this problem.There is one further role of agricultural cooperatives that we must not ignore. That is the regulation of shipping destinations among the marketing cooperatives around Asahikawa. It has been considered that production adjustments are available for the solution of formerly excessive competition.

The Role of Agricultural Cooperatives in Transformation of Rural Areas in Cuba in the 1980s

The Role of Agricultural Cooperatives in Transformation of Rural Areas in Cuba in the 1980s

The Processing of Agricultural Products and the Role of Agricultural Cooperatives(Reports of the Spring Meeting, 1988,Market of Agricultural Products for Raw Material and Food Industries)

The Processing of Agricultural Products and the Role of Agricultural Cooperatives(Reports of the Spring Meeting, 1988,Market of Agricultural Products for Raw Material and Food Industries)

稲作の発展と農協の役割

稲作の発展と農協の役割