Co-operatives play a major role in the agricultural and food industry. Co-operatives, by the very nature, are producer-oriented firms. As market conditions for food products have changed in recent decades, the question is raised whether co-operatives are still efficient organisations for carrying transaction with agrifood products? Bijman (2002) has addressed this question for the fresh produce...

Fair Trade attempts to address the poverty issues of small Southern producers through the payment of a 'fair price' for their goods and the provision of support services for producer organisations. Although Fair Trade is overwhelmingly identified with the 'fair price' paid by participating importers and buyers, sketching the possible avenues of impact reveal that many of the effects of Fair Tra...

India is the largestmilk producer in world and dairy cooperatives are backbone of Indian industry. In Kerala, Kerala Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation,popularly known as Milma,has played a significant role for development business. But recent years even though Federationcontinues to mark growth,the percentage growth has beenfar below theprivate sector. The study analysed performance KCMMF w...

The New Generation Cooperatives: Case Studies are made possible with support from the Illi-nois Council on Food and Agricultural Research (C-FAR) and the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs (IIRA). A collection of ten case studies with an introduction is available from IIRA in print and on the IIRA web page. Quoting from these materials for noncommercial purposes is permitted provided proper c...

Joseph D. Coffey a poor measure because many farmers hold My remarks will be divided into three parts. multiple memberships, sometimes even in the First, I will comment briefly on the nature of same cooperative. Furthermore, a cooperfarmer cooperatives. Secondly, I will briefly ative member may be an individual farmer or critique Christy's four main points. Third, I it may be a multi-million do...

Recent issues of ARE Update featured articles evaluating the failures of two California marketing cooperatives, Tri Valley Growers (TVG) and Rice Growers Association (RGA). Along with Blue Anchor’s dissolution and Calavo’s conversion, these combined events have created doubts about the future of cooperatives in California agriculture. Restructured forms of cooperatives are emerging. For example...

OBJECTIVE This article examines the impact of contracting health care provision to health care cooperatives in Costa Rica. METHODOLOGY The article uses a panel dataset on health care outputs in traditional clinics and cooperatives in Costa Rica from 1990-99. RESULTS Controlling for community socioeconomic characteristics, annual time trends and clinic complexity, the cooperatives conducted ...