合作社嵌入对林农生态化经营非木质林产品的影响

以浙江省、江西省和福建省这3个省378户林农为样本,采用Logit模型分析合作社嵌入对林农生态化经营非木质林产品的影响。结果表明:合作社嵌入显著地促进林农生态化经营非木质林产品。此外,户主受教育年限、农户家庭林业收入所占比例、林种及家庭营林劳动力人数也在不同程度上促进林农生态化经营非木质林产品。因此,提出建立生态化经营试点示范;发挥核心社员的示范带动作用;开设针对性的生态化经营技术培训等建议。     

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.     

Factors Influencing Organic and Fair Trade Coffee Growers Level of Engagement with Cooperatives: The Case of Coffee Farmers in Mexico

We study the factors influencing the percentage of organic and fair trade certified coffee sold through a cooperative by growers of five cooperatives in Mexico. The percentage of coffee sold through the cooperative was used as a proxy of growers’ engagement with a cooperative. Using factor analysis and a fractional probit regression, we evaluated the proposition that the level of engagement can be explained by transaction cost economics, social norms and connections, and farmer and farm business characteristics. We found that farm size, uncertainty regarding cooperative time of payment to the members and cooperative commitment on price to be paid negatively influence the level of engagement. In contrast, asset specificity, relational commitment, and price have a positive impact on engagement. Our results may help cooperatives and policy makers to build strategies aiming to increase this level of engagement. This is relevant because lower grower engagement has been found to be positively correlated with weak performing cooperatives.     

Crop Insurance in a Political Economy: An Alternative Perspective on Agricultural Policy

Lawmakers often subsidize farmers in times of financial distress. This article models this political impulse as a constraint on government farm policy, describing how ex ante government farm insurance can deter ex post "disaster relief" and improve production incentives by countering the moral hazard that otherwise prevails. Absent ex ante government policy, ex post relief takes the form of revenue insurance, which prompts excessive entry into farm production and under-production by operating farmers. Ex ante government policy can raise economic and political welfare by buying out low productivity farmers and offering profitable farmers a combination of revenue insurance, price supports, and a program participation fee.     

Impact of cooperatives on smallholders' commercialization behavior: evidence from Ethiopia

This article examines the impact of marketing cooperatives on smallholder commercialization of cereals using detailed household data in rural Ethiopia. We use the strong government role in promoting the establishment of cooperatives to justify the use of propensity score matching to compare households that are cooperative members to similar households in comparable areas without cooperatives. The analysis reveals that although cooperatives obtain higher prices for their members, they are not associated with a significant increase in the overall share of cereal production sold commercially by their members. However, these average results hide considerable heterogeneity across households. In particular, we find that smaller farmers tend to reduce their marketed output as a result of higher prices, whereas the opposite is true for larger farmers.     

Farmers' time allocation between farm work and off-farm work and the importance of unobserved group effects: evidence from Israeli cooperatives

Agricultural cooperatives differ in many attributes which affect members' farm and off-farm earnings in different ways. As a result, time allocation patterns between farm work and off-farm work will vary significantly across cooperatives. Participation equations in farm work and off-farm work of farmers who are members of Israeli moshavim are estimated jointly, including a cooperative-specific factor in each equation. The fixed effects are found to be significant and important, but can be only partly explained by observed cooperative attributes. This provides another support to the Monte Carlo results of Borjas and Sueyoshi, that controlling for group effects is superior to alternative models. The results also imply that unobserved factors have considerable effects on farmers' time allocation, and hence should be controlled for whenever possible.     

基于投影寻踪方法的粮食主产区农民用水合作组织绩效研究——基于湖北、湖南、黑龙江3省的调查

[目的]农民用水合作组织是我国灌溉管理制度改革的产物,农民用水合作组织的建立改进了农村水利管理的方式,提高了灌溉管理过程中水资源的利用率。[方法]通过构建粮食主产区农民用水合作组织绩效评价指标体系,建立基于实数编码加速遗传算法的投影寻踪分类模型,对湖北、湖南、黑龙江等3省61家农民用水合作组织的绩效进行了实证分析。[结果]粮食主产区农民用水合作组织绩效水平总体较好,在所调查的61家农民用水合作组织中,27.1%的农民用水合作组织绩效为优秀,28.8%绩效良好,13.6%绩效一般,30.5%绩效较差。[结论]总体上来看,湖南、湖北等2省农民用水合作组织的绩效高于黑龙江。是否有产权、农户参与率、是否民主决策、培训次数、农户满意度、单位面积灌水量和水费收取率等指标对农民用水合作组织绩效影响最大。因此,政府适当放权,选取恰当的扶持方式,提升农户的认识,推广好的农民用水合作组织发展模式是提高农民用水合作组织绩效的有效途径。     

Farmer cooperatives in China: diverse pathways to sustainable rural development

In the midst of China's agricultural reform, new forms of farmer organization have emerged, some initiated by farmers themselves, but most through government intervention. Based on national survey data complemented by two in-depth case studies of rural cooperatives, an analysis is made of the roles and significance of these new farmer organizations. Chinese rural cooperatives predominantly facilitate economic cooperation and market integration. This is supported by agricultural policies and the Cooperative Law of 2007 oriented towards the commoditization of smallholder farming. There are some cooperatives not primarily motivated by commodity imperatives, but by the fulfilment of agro-ecological and socio-cultural functions. To date, the roles and significance of this non-mainstream type of rural cooperative has not received much attention. If China is to become a ‘green society’ as proclaimed by the government, more attention and support to this type of cooperatives seems warranted.     

A Market-Forces Policy for the New Farm Economy?

This paper first discusses the changes that are bringing about the New Farm Economy. A wave of consolidation has shifted agricultural production to larger, lower cost producers in almost all sectors of agriculture. At the same time, supply chains represent a new form of ownership and control that is replacing commodity markets as the preferred way to market farm output. Both consolidation and the development of supply chains offer the possibility of producing a greater variety of safer, cheaper food. The paper argues that farm policy, crafted for the agriculture of the 1930s, is no longer necessary to raise or stabilize farm incomes, and is largely ineffective anyway. Moreover, farm policy impedes the market forces driving innovation and efficiency in the farm economy. Letting market forces guide the evolution of the farm economy, unfettered by outdated government programs and unnecessary farm subsidies, is the best way to harness the benefits of the New Farm Economy. Getting rid of government subsidies and control will lead to dramatically fewer farmers in agriculture: a policy to deal explicitly with those who will leave agriculture is needed. A transition policy is described that focuses on helping reduce the number of farmers by offering a buyout to farm producers which subsidizes their exit from farming and prevents reentry.     

农民专业合作社的经济效果分析——以南京市西瓜合作社为例

本文在对农户参加合作社的动机、合作社选择农户的基准进行描述的基础上,通过计量分析,探讨了合作社对农户经济的影响。结果表明,一方面,合作社限制小规模农户入社;另一方面,对新旧合作社的理解和对人民公社的反感也导致了部分农户不愿入社。此外,用日均劳动收入测算的结果表明,合作社对小规模农户效果明显,对大规模农户效果不显著。因此,农民对合作社的不理解和入社条件的限制,让相应小规模农户失去了提高收入的机会。     

新形势下我国农民专业合作社外部监管完善的必要性

《农民专业合作社法》颁布实施以来,我国专业合作社发展迅速,但空壳合作社较多,合作社套取国家优惠政策常有发生。与国际合作社相比,我国合作社数量不少但质量亟待提升。2007年以来我国"重扶持,轻监管"的合作社法律和政策体系是否适应专业合作社由数量发展向质量提升的新形势?我国农民专业合作社外部监管需要加快完善吗?本文通过构建政府与合作社间的演化博弈模型分析合作社经营过程中二者之间的博弈行为和策略均衡,然后结合案例进一步展开分析。研究结果表明:(1)政府监管对于促进合作社规范经营至关重要;(2)缺乏长效监管机制会导致一些合作社再次采取俘获行为;(3)新的时代背景下我国应加快完善专业合作社的监管体系,形成适合国情的有效监管体系,政府应该在立法和政策上加快推进完善合作社监管体系。     

THE ECONOMIC POLITY OF FARM POLICY

A review of the ‘new political economy’ of agricultural policies includes models of social income maximising governments, collective action by ‘pressure groups’, and the interaction between politicians and voters. An alternative explanation for Olson's “social by-product” theory for why farmers received massive subsidies as a large group is also presented. An explanation for various patterns of farm policy interventions is given, including why rich countries subsidise and poor countries tax farmers. Finally, the role of public research expenditures and the interaction with commodity policy is explored.     

Protecting farm land near cities : Trade-offs with affordable housing in Hawaii

In protecting farm land near cities, policy makers must balance the interests of farmers against affordable housing demands of the urban population. This article examines land use competition between agriculture and housing on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Land suitability ratings for farming and urban development are compared, and future urban expansion onto agricultural land is simulated under different land use policies. Results indicate severe tradeoffs for affordable housing if all high quality farm lands are strictly preserved. Achieving farmland protection goals will require further policy support to transform the local farm structure from plantation to diversified agriculture.     

FARM HOUSEHOLD STRATEGIES AND PLURIACTIVITY IN UPLAND SCOTLAND

This paper considers how farm households in Grampians, an upland area of Scotland, are adapting to changing economic and political pressures. Most farms in the area are family farms, and such farm households are being exhorted to diversify their sources of income and to reduce their reliance on agriculture. Based on surveys in 1988 and 1989, this study finds, to the contrary, that only a small proportion of farmers has been reducing reliance on agricultural sources of income, and few anticipate a declining share of their household income to come from farming. Most farmers are loathe to undertake ancillary non-agricultural occupations because of the lower status implied; and farmers in the study area are found to have a very poor understanding of the broad policy context within which they produce. The paper also confirms the finding of other studies that off-farm employment of household members makes a significant contribution to farm household income; and the nature of such pluriactivity and of pluriactive farm households in the area is reviewed.     

“Keep a sinking boat afloat”: Class contradictions in a nascent shrimp farmers' cooperative in South China

Whether producer cooperatives could serve as a stepping stone leading to socialism is a much debated issue in Marxian scholarship. It has now been recognized that producer cooperatives might possess paradoxical potentials of promoting egalitarian economy and democratic management whilst at the same time constructing class hierarchies. So far, agrarian scholars have already identified how pre-existing social differentiation facilitated privileged members to exploit the marginal non-members. However, they have not explored how members exercise their agency in challenging the class division. In summer 2013, at the height of China's cooperatization movement, I embarked on a project of “engaged anthropology” to mobilize shrimp farmers in South China to establish a cooperative so as to challenge agribusinesses that squeeze farmers' returns, but members ended up hiring outside labour. However, members tried hard to bridge the hierarchy between investors and workers as well as between managers and labourers in order to expand its membership and build the village's reputation. This paper traces how cooperative members deal with the dilemmas between profit maximization and egalitarian distribution, highlighting the importance of class analysis for a pro-poor cooperative movement.     

制度变迁视角下林业股份合作社的产生、优势与挑战——以浙江省安吉县尚林毛竹股份合作社为例

以浙江省安吉县尚林毛竹股份合作社为例,在制度变迁视角下探讨了林业股份合作社的产生和运作机制,林业股份合作社的优越性、存在问题和未来的发展空间。案例研究表明:第一,走向合作是林权改革后分散林农的必然选择,但合作形式是专业合作还是股份合作,并无固定模式;第二,政府对于林业股份合作社的扶持不可或缺,但其介入应当有度;第三,社会资本可以降低林业股份合作社的组织成本,并能增强合作社的稳定性;第四,林业股份合作社的发展道路并不一定要"自下而上",关键在于林农是否存在对合作的强烈需求和林业股份合作社的运行能否坚持"民办、民管、民受益"。     

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.”     

立法后农民专业合作社的发展状况和运行机制分析——基于江苏省的调研数据

本文运用对江苏省农民专业合作社的调查数据,通过统计分析和比较分析,对立法后我国农民专业合作社的发展状况和运行机制进行了研究。研究表明,农民专业合作社的市场经营能力和规范化程度明显提高,但发展中依然面临各种内外部矛盾和多种因素的制约,多数组织存在着成员规模小、服务功能不完善和股权过于集中、民主管理机制薄弱、盈余返还制度不健全的问题,相当一部分的合作社自我发展能力和带动农户增收能力还较弱,加强政府的支持引导和监督管理是农民专业合作社健康发展的客观需要。     

农民合作社减贫的农户收入效应及其异质性——基于内生转换回归模型的实证分析

[目的]农民合作社具有“天然的”益贫特征,在精准扶贫时期发挥了重要作用,研究合作社减贫的农户收入效应及其异质性对于完善和优化合作社产业减贫政策,健全贫困治理长效机制,助力乡村振兴具有重要的现实意义。[方法]文章基于2018年云南、贵州、陕西和甘肃4省欠发达地区1 551份农户的调研数据,利用内生转换回归模型（ESRM）,通过构建“反事实”分析框架,实证分析了合作社对农户所产生的收入效应及其异质性特征。[结果]（1）与未入社的农户相比,入社为其家庭总收入带来了约32.26%的收入增幅。合作社对非贫困农户、高收入分位数农户、中青年农户的减贫增收作用最明显。（2）除了对贫困农户财政性收入影响不显著外,合作社对不同贫困属性农户其他不同来源的收入均有提高,对贫困农户的农业经营性收入影响最明显,对非贫困农户的财产性收入影响最明显。（3）土地面积、生产性资产值、人情往来支出、户主受教育年限、是否参加专业培训、建档立卡户、是否有合作社、主要地理环境均显著正向影响农户入社决策;学生数量显著负向影响农户入社决策。[结论]在积极培育和发展合作社,鼓励合作社由“重数量轻质量、重服务轻规范”向高质量发展转型的同...     

农民合作社减贫、增收效应与异质性分析基于中国西部贫困地区农户调研数据

目的 在脱贫攻坚视域中,农民合作社作为产业扶贫的重要载体,为乡村经济和社会发展提供动力,是农村地区反贫困合意、有效的组织化形态,对农民合作社减贫问题进行研究,具有重要的理论价值和现实意义。方法 文章利用2018年云南、贵州、陕西和甘肃4省7县1 393户农户的微观调研数据,采用分位数回归和倾向得分匹配法对农户参加农民合作社的增收效应进行了实证检验。结果 农民合作社可以有效改善农户家庭收入水平,参加农民合作社可以使农户家庭总收入平均提高38.04%;农民合作社对中高收入水平农户、非贫困农户、低学历农户的增收促进作用更为明显;另外,户主受教育年限、是否建档立卡、土地面积、村里面是否有农民合作社、人情往来支出对数、政府补贴津贴对数、是否参加专业培训等7个因素均提高了农户参加农民合作社的意愿,而户主年龄、学生数量、是否有外出务工人员等3个因素会降低农户参加农民合作社的意愿。结论 据此,应继续培育和发展农民合作社,提升农户参与农民合作社的意愿,强化农民合作社与贫困农户的利益联结,注重扶贫资源对于贫困农户获得的便利性。