Social capital, member participation, and cooperative performance: Evidence from China’s Zhejiang

This paper examines the impacts of agricultural cooperative membership on output price, gross income, farm profit, and return on investment (ROI) utilizing a recent household survey data of 481 apple producers in China. We employ a treatment effects model to account for potential selection bias that arises from the fact that cooperative members and nonmembers are systematically different in terms of both observable and unobservable factors. Our analysis reveals that cooperative membership has a positive and statistically significant impact on apple price, gross income, farm profit, and ROI. In addition, we find that the highest profit effect of cooperative membership does not in fact result in the highest ROI effect of the membership, revealing differences in farm income and profitability of investment. [EconLit citations: C35, D71, Q12, Q13].

The economic impacts of agricultural cooperatives on smallholder farmers in rural China

Estimating effects of cooperative membership on farmers’ safe production behaviors: Evidence from pig sector in China

Member heterogeneity is often seen as a disadvantage of cooperatives. Though, a comprehensive understanding of member heterogeneity, its dimensions and impacts on member interests, organizations and their performance is still missing. The following literature review is intended to summarize the existing literature on member heterogeneity with a focus on agricultural cooperatives in order to provide further areas of research. Different dimensions of heterogeneity are identified and ways of measuring their impact on cooperative organization are proposed.

Dimensions of member heterogeneity in cooperatives and their impact on organization – a literature review

Purpose




During the past four decades, agriculture and rural development in China has scored a great progress. Organization institution in agriculture is one of the domains with drastic innovations. The purpose of this paper is to map the emergence and evolution of various agricultural organizations in China since 1978. Development status and the trend of agricultural organization system are analyzed. Further, the role of farmer cooperatives is discussed.




Design/methodology/approach




Data used in the paper are mainly from statistical yearbooks and documents published by the government including Ministry of Agriculture and Bureau of Industry and Commercial. Both descriptive and deductive analyses are adopted to achieve different analytical purposes.




Findings




The vast small-farm sector, co-existence of various types of organizations, and innovation of other organizations will continue and sustain for a long-time period in China. Despite the fast development of modern farmers and various organizations, it is important that traditional farmers participate effectively in modern agriculture. Farmers act collectively via a cooperative in a desirable way, which determines the central position of farmer cooperatives in the agricultural organization system.




Research limitations/implications




This paper is a qualitative analysis on agricultural organizations in China, yet no quantitative estimation regarding the comparison of various organizations is conducted due to insufficient data.




Originality/value




This paper fills the gap of a comprehensive review of the emergence, development status, and trend of agricultural organizations in China.

Agricultural organizations and the role of farmer cooperatives in China since 1978: past and future

The governance of farmer cooperatives in China is addressed regarding democratic decision-making procedures, participation in decision making, member exit, and profit allocation. Empirical results from a survey of fruit and vegetable cooperatives in the Zhejiang province (China) indicate that the distribution of ownership rights, decision rights, and income rights in a farmer cooperative is quite skewed towards a small proportion of members. Several governance practices by cooperatives are not in line with the requirements specified by the Law. [EconLit classification; D210; Q130].

Governance Structure of Chinese Farmer Cooperatives: Evidence From Zhejiang Province

The paper explores the effects of situation features on the governance structure types (GSTs) of farmer cooperatives in China. The “Situation–Structure” analytical framework is used to understand the relationship between situation features and governance structures in the field of industry economics. Four categories of GSTs of cooperatives are identified, i.e., common farmer-led, rural elite-led, enterprise-led, and related organization-led. The sample comprises 266 farmer cooperatives collected via a field survey in three provinces in China. A logit probability model is applied to address the effects of various situation features on GSTs. The results reveal that both technical and institutional environments have significant effects on the governance structure of cooperatives.

Situation features and governance structure of farmer cooperatives in China: Does initial situation matter?

Over the past thirty years, reforms in China have pushed forward the integral development of the economy and opened up agriculture to modernization. Small farmers who obtained independent production and operating rights during the reform period must now confront the pressure of market competition. The "Investor-Owned Firm (IOF) + farmers" mode or leading-enterprises-led mode has pioneered agricultural industrialization in China. However, it has some limitations in terms of contract instability and its inability to ensure farmers' rights and interests. At the same time, cooperative organizations of small farmers have been legally accepted and supported by the government and are developing rapidly. In this article, we analyze the alternative modes of agricultural industrialization, especially the effectiveness and limitations of farmer cooperatives. We find that farmer cooperatives are going to play a more and more important role in the foreseeable future, while the leading-enterprises-led mode will also pe...

Xuchu Xu

Papers

Governance Structure of Chinese Farmer Cooperatives: Evidence From Zhejiang Province

Situation features and governance structure of farmer cooperatives in China: Does initial situation matter?

Entry of Chinese Small Farmers into Big Markets

Value co-creation in virtual game communities: a perspective on social influence theory