The impact of coffee certification on small‐scale producers’ livelihoods: a case study from the Jimma Zone,Ethiopia

What is the impact of product certification on small‐scale farmers’ livelihoods? To what extent does the participation of Ethiopian small‐scale coffee farmers in certified local cooperative structures improve their socioeconomic situation? To answer these questions, this article employs household data of 249 coffee farmers from six different cooperatives collected in the Jimma zone of Southwestern Ethiopia in 2009. Findings show that the certification of coffee cooperatives has in total a low impact on small‐scale coffee producers’ livelihoods mainly due to (1) low productivity, (2) insignificant price premium, and (3) poor access to credit and information from the cooperative. Differences in production and organizational capacities between the local cooperatives are mirrored in the extent of the certification benefits for the smallholders. “Good” cooperatives have reaped the benefits of certification, whereas “bad” ones did not fare well. In this regard the “cooperative effect” overlies the “certification effect.”     

Big is efficient: Evidence from agricultural cooperatives in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, there is a renewed interest in agricultural cooperatives as an institutional tool to improve the welfare of smallholder farmers. One of the pathways through which cooperatives benefit their members is scale economies. However, the establishment of cooperatives in Ethiopia seems to pay little attention to the size of the organizations. This article aims at investigating the effect of size on cost efficiency of agricultural cooperatives. More specifically, the purpose is to examine whether a single cooperative can serve a given number of farmers at a lower cost than two or more smaller cooperatives could. We employ the concept of cost subadditivity to compare the cost efficiency of large versus small cooperatives, and by extension unilateral actions. We estimate a flexible production technology using cross‐sectional cooperative‐level data. Findings show that costs would drop by 78% to 181% if farmers join hands in relatively large rather than small cooperatives.     

Does acquisition of a cooperative generate profits for the buyer? The Dairyworld case

This article examines the takeover of a cooperative (Dairyworld) by an investor‐owned firm (Saputo) that was not previously present in the industry, determines if this takeover generates greater returns for the investor‐owned firms (IOF), and on the basis of this evidence makes some inferences about the behavior and performance of cooperatives and IOFs. The empirical evidence strongly supports the conclusion that Saputo's stock price rose with its takeover announcement. This outcome is consistent with a number of explanations, including that Saputo was unaffected by hubris, a factor often suggested as the reason that many firms overbid when they undertake acquisitions. Dairyworld's poor liquidity and capital shortage problems, as well as a limited number of suitors, may have weakened its bargaining position in its dealings with Saputo. The observed increase in Saputo's stock price is also consistent with the possibility that, by taking over a cooperative, Saputo was able to decrease competition and thus increase its profits. A fruitful area for future research would be a rigorous theoretical and empirical determination of the impact that these various factors have on acquisition profitability. Such analysis is required before inferences about the behavior and performance of cooperatives and IOFs can be fully answered.     

The Impact of Organizational Form on Producer Contracting Decisions

A variable that has not yet been considered in the contracting literature is the impact of agribusiness organizational form on the producer's contracting decision. Contracts with cooperatives are more complicated decisions for producers than a standard marketing contract with noncooperatives because of the requisite membership capital investment in the firm. Contracting with cooperatives requires producers to make a dual supply and investment decision. Individual membership equity holdings in all agricultural cooperatives are increasing, but they are generally most substantial in the value-added, new-generation cooperatives. Portfolio theory is used to analyze the producer's decision to contract with three alternatively structured value-added processing organizations in an uncertain environment: a traditional cooperative, a new-generation cooperative and an investor-oriented firm. In the cooperative cases, the contract requires both supply and equity investment.     

The Effect of Cooperatives on Quality‐Enhancing Innovation

This paper develops game‐theoretic models of heterogeneous consumers to analyse the effect of cooperatives on quality‐enhancing product innovation activity, the pricing of food products and the welfare of the groups involved, in the context of a mixed duopoly where an open‐membership consumer co‐op competes with an investor‐owned firm in markets for horizontally differentiated products. Analytical results show that the involvement of the member welfare‐maximising co‐op in innovation activity can change the nature of product differentiation and the structure of the market, and be quality and welfare enhancing by increasing innovation activity and reducing the prices of food products. The effects of co‐operative involvement are shown to depend on the degree of consumer heterogeneity and the size of innovation costs.     

Estimating multiproduct and product‐specific scale economies for agricultural cooperatives

This article estimates multiproduct and product‐specific scale economies, scope economies, and cost efficiency with single and annual cost frontiers using a nonparametric approach. Multiproduct scale and scope economies are found that suggests increasing scale and product diversification can reduce cost for agricultural cooperatives. Many agricultural cooperatives experience economies of scale indicating that variable returns to scale as opposed to constant returns to scale is the appropriate technology for modeling agricultural cooperatives. Product‐specific scale economies for all outputs are close to one indicating that individual outputs are operating close to constant returns to scale. Annual frontier estimates show that cooperatives have become less cost efficient over time, but scale and scope economies remain relatively consistent across years. Further, results show that economic measures obtained from the single frontier are statistically different from those measures calculated from annual frontiers, suggesting that the cost frontier has shifted over time. The trade‐off between cost efficiency and multiproduct scale economies indicates that smaller cooperatives can reduce a higher percentage of cost by increasing the scale of operations rather than just becoming cost efficient. Because larger incentives exist for small cooperatives to increase scale, mergers will likely continue until economies of scale are exhausted in the industry.     

Cooperatives and the Commodity Political Agenda: A Political Economy Approach

Historically, major agricultural cooperatives in Canada have been intimately involved in commodity policy issues. Large cooperatives were created because farmers were upset about the perceived lack of competition in buying farm inputs or selling farm outputs. Often, the resulting cooperative was the organization farmers saw as the logical organization to represent their view of commodity policy or competition policy. As cooperatives grew and diversified, the ability to represent their members coherently across policy issues was hampered. For processing cooperatives in the supply-managed sector, the requirement that the cooperative be the political arm of industry, process product, and provide maximum returns to producer members made for a complicated objective function. This paper focuses on the twin objectives of providing efficient member services and performing political lobbying in a public choice framework. The results are illustrated by the recent history of a supply-managed further-processing cooperative and a diversified grain cooperative.     

Persistence of firm‐level profitability in the European dairy processing industry

Based on autoregressive (AR) models and Arellano‐Bond dynamic panel estimation, this article analyses profit persistence in the European dairy processing industry. The sample comprises 590 dairy processors from the following five countries: Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The AR models indicate that cooperatives which account for around 20% of all firms in the dairy processing sector are not primarily profit oriented. In addition, the results point toward a high level of competition as profit persistence is rather low even if cooperatives are excluded. The panel model reveals that short‐ as well as long‐run profit persistence is influenced by firm and industry characteristics.     

Neoliberalism and the revival of agricultural cooperatives: The case of the coffee sector in Uganda

Agricultural cooperatives have seen a comeback in sub‐Saharan Africa. After the collapse of many weakly performing monopolist organizations during the 1980s and 1990s, strengthened cooperatives have emerged since the 2000s. Scholarly knowledge about the state–cooperative relations in which this “revival” takes place remains poor. Based on new evidence from Uganda's coffee sector, this paper discusses the political economy of Africa's cooperative revival. The authors argue that donors' and African governments' renewed support is framed in largely apolitical terms, which obscures the contested political and economic nature of the revival. In the context of neoliberal restructuring processes, state and non‐state institutional support to democratic economic organizations with substantial redistributional agendas remains insufficient. The political–economic context in Uganda—and potentially elsewhere in Africa—contributes to poor terms of trade for agricultural cooperatives while maintaining significant state control over some cooperative activities to protect the status quo interests of big capital and state elites. These conditions are unlikely to produce a conflict‐free, substantial, and sustained revival of cooperatives, which the new promoters of cooperatives suggest is under way.     

经济欠发达地区土地股份合作社发展研究——以江苏省宿迁市为例

农村土地股份合作社是我国农村土地制度改革的产物,它克服了现行家庭联产承包责任制的一些弊端,对实行土地规模经营、建设现代农业目标具有重要意义。但当前在更广的范围内,特别是在经济欠发达地区的农村被推行时,其可行性以及由此可能产生的问题引起了广泛的注意和担忧。针对此状况,文章以江苏省经济欠发达的宿迁市为例,研究了该市土地股份合作社的发展现状,在总结和分析该市土地股份合作社发展经验和存在问题的基础上,提出了经济欠发达地区发展土地股份合作社的相关建议。研究认为,在省、市政府政策推动下,该市土地股份合作社成立速度较快,对土地规模经营起到一定的作用,但总体存在发展规模不大,农户对合作社的参与度不高等问题,合作社盈利能力不足,对提高入股农户收入作用有限。因此,建议多渠道提高农民在合作社生产、经营和管理等环节中的参与度和参与能力;加强地方政府对合作社的扶持和监督,做强合作社经济实力;健全农村就业和养老保障体系,确保农村老、弱群体在土地入股后生活水平不下降、长期生活有保障。     

Understanding New Cooperative Models: An Ownership–Control Rights Typology

This article examines new agricultural cooperative organizational models from an ownership rights perspective. The article adopts a definition of ownership rights comprising both residual claim and control rights. We argue that new cooperative organizational models differ in how ownership rights are assigned to the economic agents (members, patrons, and investors) tied contractually to the firm. The article proposes a typology of discrete organizational models, in which the traditional cooperative structure and the investor-oriented firm are characterized as polar forms. The typology also includes five nontraditional models that cooperatives may adopt to ameliorate perceived financial constraints.     

Performance Measurement of the Agricultural Marketing Cooperatives: The Gap between Theory and Practice

The performance of agricultural cooperatives depends on their business objectives, which are defined in different ways in the literature. We review the theoretical literature on the performance of agricultural marketing cooperatives. Studies can be divided into two classes, those that assume a single objective and those that assume multiple objectives. This classification integrates three views of the cooperatives: ( a ) vertical integration of firms, ( b ) independent enterprise, and ( c ) coalition of firms. Empirical studies on the financial performance of cooperatives are classified into two categories, studies based on the economic theory of the firm and studies that emphasize accounting techniques. Empirical studies have failed to address the cooperatives' objectives as represented by the theoretical literature on cooperative performance.     

Productivity and Environmental Performance in Marketing Cooperatives: An Analysis of the Spanish Horticultural Sector

The paper analyses the productivity of marketing cooperatives incorporating environmental inputs/outputs. In the European agriculture, expectations for attaining sustainable and competitive agriculture rely to a great extent on the cooperative sector's ability to adapt to new market conditions. These challenges have led marketing cooperatives in the fruit and vegetables sector to consider improvements in productivity and sound environmental performance. The study analyses the total factor productivity related to environmental variables in this sector using a parametric‐stochastic approach and panel data on Spanish cooperatives over the period 1994–2002. Additionally, the determinants of environmental productivity are examined econometrically. The estimates obtained show an increase in efficiency for the period under study and a relationship between productivity changes and management factors, such as labour quality, capital intensity and environmental spillover.     

基于DEA-Tobit模型的农民专业合作社效率分析——来自新疆生产建设兵团的实证

[目的]通过测度新疆建设生产兵团农民专业合作社效率以及探究其影响因素,以期为兵团合作社的效率改进方向和策略提供理论支撑。[方法]文章基于2019年对兵团408家农民专业合作社的微观调研数据,运用DEA-Tobit方法测度了农民专业合作社的综合效率、纯技术效率和规模效率,并进一步对农民专业合作社综合效率的影响因素进行了分析。[结果]农民专业合作社的综合效率、纯技术效率和规模效率均整体水平偏低,且综合效率水平偏低主要由是纯技术效率偏低导致。合作社规模和合作社等级负向影响合作社的效率,而理事会规模、政府财政资金支持、产业类型等因素正向影响合作社效率。[结论]改善合作社的纯技术效率可有效提升兵团农民专业合作社效率,且农民专业合作社规模、理事会规模、理事长受教育程度、合作社等级、政府财政资金支持、技术培训频率、产业类型等因素均是提高农民专业合作社效率的关键因素。     

La Participation des Adhérents Dans Leurs Coopératives Agricoles: Une Étude Exploratoire du Secteur Céréalier Français

When a farmer joins an agricultural cooperative, he or she undertakes to participate in the cooperative economically, as a co‐operator, and also in its administration, as an associate. Yet, today, researchers and directors of cooperatives are observing a drop in member participation in both spheres. The goal of this paper is to build a typology of the members of grain farmer agricultural co‐operatives in France, based on the members’ participation, and then use a multinomial probit model to identify the factors that come into play and result in a member belonging to a given category in the typology. We make the hypothesis that attitudes with respect to organizational involvement and the member's confidence in his or her co‐operative can explain these differences in behavior, along with individual variables tied to the member and his or her farm business, and variables associated with the co‐operative to which the member belongs. Following the analysis of the participation behavior of the 290 members in the sample, the members can be grouped into three distinct categories: “individualists,” “good soldiers,” and “engaged.” The results of the multinomial probit model on these three categories show, in particular, that attitude toward organizational involvement has a significant effect, as do the presence of storage on the farm and the size of the cooperative on the probability of being an “individualist” rather than a “good soldier” or “engaged.”     

The agrifood cooperative netchain. A theoretical framework to study its configuration

This paper proposes a research framework of the design and configuration of agrifood chains where the focal firm is a second-tier cooperative (group of affiliated cooperatives) in order to assess the alignment of (relational) governance structures and coordination mechanisms in these chains with supply chain management (SCM) principles. The theoretical framework draws on the Relational View of inter-organizational competitive advantage and the Theory of Networks given that inter-cooperative vertical relationships are embedded in horizontal ties between firms (first-tier cooperatives) of social rather economic nature. The conceptual framework developed herein will help theory building in SCM, but most importantly, it will advance current knowledge on the scope of SCM in the agrifood cooperative sector.     

Efficiency of Cooperatives and Investor Owned Firms Revisited

The objectives of dairy processing cooperatives differ from those of investor‐owned firms (IOFs). However, the literature usually assumes the same performance measures for cooperatives vis‐a‐vis IOFs. This study compares the performance of dairy cooperatives and IOFs in major European dairy producing countries. A traditional input oriented approach is used and two alternative approaches are used to account for the differential objectives of cooperatives. Cooperatives’ performance differs across the two approaches from being outperformed by IOFs using the input oriented approach to outperforming them when using an approach that is more in line with cooperatives’ objectives.     

丹麦与中国农业合作社之比较研究

本文通过对丹麦农业合作社的发展历程、特点、内部制度安排、合作社发展动力等方面与中国农民专业合作社进行比较,分析了中国农民专业合作社与丹麦农业合作社的具体差别,认为合作理念、社员自治、人才培养是目前中国从丹麦合作社发展中可以汲取的重要经验.     

Supermarket Expansion in Turkey: Shifting Relations of Food Provisioning

This paper examines the shifting relations of food provisioning in Turkey as small producers are increasingly integrated into commercialized agri‐food supply chains led by supermarkets. Turkey's entry into a customs union with the European Union and a World Bank–imposed policy measure adopted during the 2001 economic crisis have greatly facilitated the process of market intensification in Turkish agriculture. There are two sides to this process: one concerns the historical centrality of small‐scale production directed towards local–regional consumers; the other relates to the dominant role played by supermarkets in changing the conditions of subsistence. The restructuring of wholesale markets and the privatization of formerly state‐led agricultural co‐operatives and producers' unions have been crucial for the expansion of supermarkets into agri‐food relationships. The competitive growth of Islamically oriented small and medium‐sized capital groups alongside large retailers is further deepening the commodification process in food relationships.     

COOPERATIVES – UNDER PERFORMERS BY NATURE? AN EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS OF COOPERATIVE AND NON-COOPERATIVE COMPANIES IN THE AGRI-BUSINESS SECTOR

This paper sets out to determine whether agricultural cooperative companies in the UK are more likely to underperform when compared with non-cooperative companies in the same sector. The research indicates, that on the basis of profitability, capital gearing and liquidity, there were no significant differences between the two groups. For the business operational efficiency indicators of sales/working capital ratios, and creditor ratios, there were also no significant differences although, for the indicators of stock turnover and debtor ratios, cooperatives were seen to have significantly higher rates when compared with the non-cooperative companies. The findings of this research reveal that cooperatives do not perform differently to non-cooperatives, despite being required to balance member needs with the attainment of corporate goals.