Agricultural production cooperatives and agricultural development: Is there a niche after all? Findings from an exploratory survey in China

Axel Wolz, Shemei Zhang and Ya Ding
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Shemei Zhang: Sichuan Agricultural University, School of Management, Yaan, Sichuan (China)
Ya Ding: University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu (China)

No 2004, CIRIEC Working Papers from CIRIEC - Université de Liège

Abstract: Agricultural production cooperatives used to be the “stepchild†of the cooperative movement. Although they stem from a similar long tradition of agricultural service cooperatives, researchers such as Oppenheimer (1896) and Schiller (1969) observed early on that they were not attractive for farmers in villages characterised by family agriculture. In general, it was argued that they were not competitive at all with family farms, but also not corporate farms, thus having no role in agricultural development. Historically, agricultural production cooperatives were formed under specific conditions only. Most prominent were collective farms under the socialist regimes, which were often labelled “agricultural production cooperatives†, although these were by no means of a voluntary nature. However, in recent years, agricultural production cooperatives have been observed in villages characterised by family agriculture. In Chongzhou County (Sichuan Province, China) they cover more than half of the total utilized agricultural area. This research analyses the conditions under which farmers voluntarily join such production cooperatives and how they assess their membership in them. We suggest that agricultural production cooperatives have a role to play in agricultural development after all.

Keywords: : agricultural production cooperatives; agricultural service cooperatives; agricultural development; empirical research; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 P13 Q13 Q15 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-tra
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