Agricultural Cooperatives
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An agricultural cooperative, also known as a farmers' co-op, is a
cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...
in which farmers pool their resources in certain areas of activity. A broad typology of agricultural cooperatives distinguishes between agricultural service cooperatives, which provide various services to their individually-farming members, and agricultural production cooperatives in which production resources (land, machinery) are pooled and members farm jointly.Cobia, David, editor, ''Cooperatives in Agriculture'', Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ (1989), p. 50. Examples of agricultural production cooperatives include
collective farms Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member- ...
in former socialist countries, the
kibbutzim A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming ha ...
in Israel, collectively-governed community shared agriculture,
Longo Maï The Longo Maï Co-operatives are a network of agricultural co-operatives with an anti-capitalist ideological focus. Founded in 1973 in Limans, France, the network has spread in Europe and to Central America. History Following the events of Ma ...
co-operatives and Nicaraguan production co-operatives.Why Nicaraguan Peasants Stay in Agricultural Production Cooperatives
Ruerd Ruben and Zvi Lerman
The default meaning of "agricultural cooperative" in English is usually an agricultural service cooperative, the numerically dominant form in the world. There are two primary types of agricultural service cooperatives: supply cooperatives and marketing cooperatives. Supply cooperatives supply their members with inputs for agricultural production, including seeds,
fertilizers A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...
,
fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy but ...
, and machinery services. Marketing cooperatives are established by farmers to undertake transportation, packaging, pricing, distribution, sales and promotion of farm products (both crop and livestock). Farmers also widely rely on credit cooperatives as a source of financing for both working capital and investments.


Purpose

Cooperatives as a form of business organization are distinct from the more common investor-owned firms (IOFs). Both are organized as
corporations A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and r ...
, but IOFs pursue
profit maximization In economics, profit maximization is the short run or long run process by which a firm may determine the price, input and output levels that will lead to the highest possible total profit (or just profit in short). In neoclassical economics, w ...
objectives, whereas cooperatives strive to maximize the benefits they generate for their members (which usually involves zero-profit operation). Agricultural cooperatives are therefore created in situations where farmers cannot obtain essential services from IOFs (because the provision of these services is judged to be unprofitable by the IOFs), or when IOFs provide the services at disadvantageous terms to the farmers (i.e., the services are available, but the profit-motivated prices are too high for the farmers). The former situations are characterized in economic theory as
market failure In neoclassical economics, market failure is a situation in which the allocation of goods and services by a free market is not Pareto efficient, often leading to a net loss of economic value. Market failures can be viewed as scenarios where indiv ...
or missing services motive. The latter drive the creation of cooperatives as a competitive yardstick or as a means of allowing farmers to build countervailing
market power In economics, market power refers to the ability of a firm to influence the price at which it sells a product or service by manipulating either the supply or demand of the product or service to increase economic profit. In other words, market powe ...
to oppose the IOFs. The concept of competitive yardstick implies that farmers, faced with unsatisfactory performance by IOFs, may form a cooperative firm whose purpose is to force the IOFs, through competition, to improve their service to farmers.John M. Staatz, "Farmers' incentives to take collective action via cooperatives: A transaction-cost approach, " in: ''Cooperative Theory: New Approaches'', ed. J.S. Royer, Washington, DC: USDA ACS Service Report 18 (July 1987), pp. 87–107. A practical motivation for the creation of agricultural cooperatives is related to the ability of farmers to pool production and/or resources. In many situations within agriculture, it is simply too expensive for farmers to manufacture products or undertake a service. Cooperatives provide a method for farmers to join in an 'association', through which a group of farmers can acquire a better outcome, typically financial, than by going alone. This approach is aligned to the concept of
economies of scale In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables ...
and can also be related as a form of economic
synergy Synergy is an interaction or cooperation giving rise to a whole that is greater than the simple sum of its parts. The term ''synergy'' comes from the Attic Greek word συνεργία ' from ', , meaning "working together". History In Christia ...
, where "two or more agents working together to produce a result not obtainable by any of the agents independently". While it may seem reasonable to conclude that larger the cooperative the better, this is not necessarily true. Cooperatives exist across a broad membership base, with some cooperatives having fewer than 20 members while others can have over 10,000. While the economic benefits are a strong driver in forming cooperatives, it is not the sole consideration. In fact, it is possible for the economic benefits from a cooperative to be replicated in other organisational forms, such as an IOF. An important strength of a cooperative for the farmer is that they retain the governance of the association, thereby ensuring they have ultimate ownership and control. This ensures that the profit reimbursement (either through the dividend payout or rebate) is shared only amongst the farmer members, rather than shareholders as in an IOF. As agricultural production is often the main source of employment and income in rural and impoverished areas, agricultural cooperatives play an instrumental role in socio-economic development,
food security Food security speaks to the availability of food in a country (or geography) and the ability of individuals within that country (geography) to access, afford, and source adequate foodstuffs. According to the United Nations' Committee on World F ...
and poverty reduction. They provide
smallholder A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology ...
farmers with access to natural and educational resources, tools, and otherwise inaccessible marketplaces. Producer organisations can also empower smallholders to become more resilient; in other words, they build the capacity of farmers to prepare for and react to economic and environmental stressors and shocks in a way that limits vulnerability and promotes their sustainability. Research suggests that membership in a producer organisation is more highly correlated with farmer output or income than other standalone investments such as training, certification, or credit. In agriculture, there are broadly three types of cooperatives: a machinery pool, a manufacturing/marketing cooperative, and a
credit union A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit organization, nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including depo ...
. * Machinery pool: A family farm may be too small to justify the purchase of expensive farm machinery, which may be only used irregularly, say only during harvest; instead local farmers may get together to form a machinery pool that purchases the necessary equipment for all the members to use. * Manufacturing/marketing cooperative: A farm does not always have the means of transportation necessary for delivering its produce to the market, or else the small volume of its production may put it in an unfavorable negotiating position with respect to intermediaries and wholesalers; a cooperative will act as an integrator, collecting the output from members, sometimes undertaking manufacturing, and delivering it in large aggregated quantities downstream through the marketing channels. * Credit Union: Farmers, especially in developing countries, can be charged relatively high interest rates by commercial banks, or credit may not even be available for farmers to access. When providing loans, these banks are often mindful of high
transaction costs In economics and related disciplines, a transaction cost is a cost in making any economic trade when participating in a market. Oliver E. Williamson defines transaction costs as the costs of running an economic system of companies, and unlike pro ...
on small loans, or may refuse credit altogether due to lack of
collateral Collateral may refer to: Business and finance * Collateral (finance), a borrower's pledge of specific property to a lender, to secure repayment of a loan * Marketing collateral, in marketing and sales Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Collate ...
– something very acute in developing countries. To provide a source of credit, farmers can group together funds that can be loaned out to members. Alternatively, the credit union can raise loans at better rates from commercial banks due to the cooperative having a larger associative size than an individual farmer. Often members of a credit union will provide mutual or peer-pressure guarantees for repayment of loans. In some instances, manufacturing/marketing cooperatives may have credit unions as part of their broader business. Such an approach allows farmers to have a more direct access to critical farm inputs, such as seeds and implements. The loans for these inputs are repaid when the farmer sends produce to the manufacturing/marketing cooperative.


Origins and history

The first agricultural cooperatives were created in Europe in the seventeenth century in the
Military Frontier The Military Frontier (german: Militärgrenze, sh-Latn, Vojna krajina/Vojna granica, Војна крајина/Војна граница; hu, Katonai határőrvidék; ro, Graniță militară) was a borderland of the Habsburg monarchy and l ...
, where the wives and children of the border guards lived together in organized agricultural cooperatives next to a
funfair A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Types Variations of fairs incl ...
and a
public bath Public baths originated when most people in population centers did not have access to private bathing facilities. Though termed "public", they have often been restricted according to gender, religious affiliation, personal membership, and other cr ...
. The first
civil Civil may refer to: *Civic virtue, or civility *Civil action, or lawsuit * Civil affairs *Civil and political rights *Civil disobedience *Civil engineering *Civil (journalism), a platform for independent journalism *Civilian, someone not a membe ...
agricultural cooperatives were created also in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. They spread later to North America and the other continents. They have become one of the tools of agricultural development in emerging countries. Farmers also cooperated to form mutual farm insurance societies. Also related are rural
credit union A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit organization, nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including depo ...
s. They were created in the same periods, with the initial purpose of offering farm loans. Some became universal banks such as Crédit Agricole or
Rabobank Rabobank (; full name: ''Coöperatieve Rabobank U.A.'') is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Utrecht, Netherlands. The group comprises 89 local Dutch Rabobanks (2019), a central organisation (Raboban ...
.


Supply cooperatives

Agricultural supply cooperatives aggregate purchases, storage, and distribution of farm inputs for their members. By taking advantage of volume discounts and utilizing other economies of scale, supply cooperatives bring down the cost of the inputs that the members purchase from the cooperative compared with direct purchases from commercial suppliers. Supply cooperatives provide inputs required for agricultural production including seeds, fertilizers, chemicals, fuel, and farm machinery. Some supply cooperatives operate machinery pools that provide mechanical field services (e.g., plowing, harvesting) to their members.


Examples


Australia

* Co-operative Bulk Handling Limited * Westralian Farmers Co‐operative Limited


Canada

*
Farmers' Storehouse Company The Farmers’ Storehouse was Canada's first farmers' cooperative, founded in Toronto and the Home District in 1824. It stood at the centre of a broad economic and political reform movement that, in its essentials, was not greatly different from ...
*
United Farmers of Alberta The United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) is an association of Alberta farmers that has served different roles in its 100-year history – as a lobby group, a successful political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. As a political party, it forme ...
*
Farmers of North America Farmers of North America ("FNA"), incorporated as Farms and Families of North America Inc., has been characterized as a volume-buyer group, but that function is only one of its strategies for meeting its mission, "Maximizing Farm Profitability." ...


France

*
Agrial Agrial is a French agricultural cooperative and food-processor with operations in dairy, beef, poultry, vegetables and fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flower ...
(
Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...
) * Terrena (
Pays de la Loire Pays de la Loire (; ; br, Broioù al Liger) is one of the 18 regions of France, in the west of the mainland. It was created in the 1950s to serve as a zone of influence for its capital, Nantes, one of a handful of "balancing metropolises" (). ...
) * Vivescia


Israel

* Granot central cooperative


Japan

*
Japan Agricultural Cooperatives , also known as or JA Group, refers to the national group of 694 regional co-ops in Japan that supply members with input for production, undertake packaging, transportation, and marketing of agricultural products, and provide financial services. A ...


Ukraine

*
Ukrainian cooperative movement The Ukrainian Cooperative Movement was a movement that addressed the economic plight of the Ukrainians, Ukrainian people through the creation of financial, agricultural and trade cooperatives that enabled Ukrainians (primarily peasants) to pool thei ...


United States

* Landisville Produce Co-op, established 1914 * Rockingham Cooperative, established in 1921 * MFA Incorporated *
Darigold Northwest Dairy Association (formerly the Northwest Dairymen's Association; Trading as Darigold, Inc.) is an American dairy agricultural marketing cooperative. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, it is owned by about 350 dairy farm members of ...
*
Organic Valley Organic Valley (OV) is an organic food brand and independent cooperative of organic farmers based in La Farge, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1988, Organic Valley is the nation’s largest farmer-owned organic cooperative and one of the ...
*
National Council of Farmer Cooperatives National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...
* Southern States Cooperative * Farmers Cooperative Association, Inc.;
Frederick, Maryland Frederick is a city in and the county seat of Frederick County, Maryland. It is part of the Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area. Frederick has long been an important crossroads, located at the intersection of a major north–south Native ...
*
Ocean Spray (cooperative) Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc. is an American agricultural cooperative of growers of cranberries headquartered in Plymouth County, Massachusetts. It currently has over 700 member growers (in Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington ...
*
Land O'Lakes Land O'Lakes, Inc. is an American member-owned agricultural cooperative based in the Minneapolis-St. Paul suburb of Arden Hills, Minnesota, United States, focusing on the dairy industry. The cooperative has 1,959 direct producer-members, 751 ...
*
Michigan Sugar Michigan Sugar Company is an agricultural cooperative, based in Bay City, Michigan, that specializes in the processing of beet sugar. Founded in 1906, Michigan Sugar sells beet sugar under the brand names ''Big Chief'' and ''Pioneer.'' Michiga ...
* Sunkist * Wilco stores (Oregon) *
Grange Cooperative Grange Cooperative Supply Association (often referred to as Grange Co-op) is an agricultural supply cooperative based in Oregon's Rogue Valley. It was started in 1934 with a group of 99 farmers from the Rogue Valley who invested $10 each to form a ...


Netherlands

*
Avebe The cooperative Royal Avebe U.A. (abbreviation of ''Aardappelmeel Verkoop Bureau'') is an international Dutch starch manufacturer located in the north of the Netherlands and produces starch products based on potato starch and potato protein for us ...
* Agrico *
Agrifirm Agrifirm is a cooperative enterprise in which more than 10.000 Dutch farmers and horticulturalists have combined their purchasing power. Agrifirm in its current form was founded in 2010 due to a successive merger of regional cooperatives. The en ...


Marketing cooperatives

Agricultural marketing Agricultural marketing covers the services involved in moving an agricultural product from the farm to the consumer. These services involve the planning, organizing, directing and handling of agricultural produce in such a way as to satisfy farm ...
cooperatives are
cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...
businesses owned by farmers, to undertake transformation, packaging, distribution, and marketing of farm products (both crop and livestock.)


New Zealand

New Zealand has a strong history of agricultural cooperatives, dating back to the late 19th century. The first was the small Otago Peninsula Co-operative Cheese Factory Co. Ltd, started in 1871 at Highcliff on the
Otago Otago (, ; mi, Ōtākou ) is a region of New Zealand located in the southern half of the South Island administered by the Otago Regional Council. It has an area of approximately , making it the country's second largest local government reg ...
Peninsula. With active support by the New Zealand government, and small cooperatives being suitable in isolated areas, cooperatives quickly began to dominate the industry. By 1905, dairy cooperatives were the main organisational structure in the industry. In the 1920s–'30s, there were around 500 co-operative dairy companies compared to less than 70 that were privately owned. However, after
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, with the advent of improved transportation, processing technologies and energy systems, a trend to merge dairy cooperatives occurred. By the late 1990s, there were two major cooperatives: the
Waikato Waikato () is a Regions of New Zealand, local government region of the upper North Island of New Zealand. It covers the Waikato District, Waipa District, Matamata-Piako District, South Waikato District and Hamilton, New Zealand, Hamilton City ...
-based New Zealand Dairy Group and the
Taranaki Taranaki is a region in the west of New Zealand's North Island. It is named after its main geographical feature, the stratovolcano of Mount Taranaki, also known as Mount Egmont. The main centre is the city of New Plymouth. The New Plymouth D ...
-based Kiwi Co-operative Dairies. In 2001 these two cooperatives, together with the
New Zealand Dairy Board The New Zealand Dairy Board (NZDB) was a statutory board in control of the export of all New Zealand dairy products from its formation in 1923 until 2001. It operated through a global network of marketing subsidiaries. In 2001, the Dairy Board wa ...
, merged to form
Fonterra Fonterra Co-operative Group Limited is a New Zealand multinational publicly traded dairy co-operative owned by around 9,000 New Zealand farmers. The company is responsible for approximately 30% of the world's dairy exports and with revenue exce ...
. This mega-merger was supported by the New Zealand Government as part of broader dairy industry deregulation, which allowed other companies to directly export dairy products. Two smaller cooperatives did not join Fonterra, preferring to remain independent – the
Morrinsville Morrinsville is a provincial town in the Waikato region of New Zealand's North Island, with an estimated population of as of The town is located at the northern base of the Pakaroa Range, and on the south-western fringe of the Hauraki Plains. ...
-based
Tatua Dairy Company The Tatua Co-operative Dairy Company Ltd, trading as Tatua, is an independent co-operative dairy company in the Matamata-Piako District of the Waikato Region, in the North Island of New Zealand. It is located in the rural locality of Tatuan ...
and
Westland Milk Products Westland Milk Products is a dairy company based in Hokitika, New Zealand. It has been owned by Chinese dairy company Yili Group since 2019. It is the third-equal largest dairy processor in New Zealand (behind Fonterra and Open Country Dairy, a ...
on the West Coast of the South Island. The other main agricultural co-operatives in New Zealand are in the meat and fertiliser industries. The
meat industry The meat industry are the people and companies engaged in modern industrialized livestock agriculture for the production, packing, preservation and marketing of meat (in contrast to dairy products, wool, etc.). In economics, the meat industry is ...
, which has struggled at times, has proposed various mergers similar to the creation of Fonterra; however, these have failed to gain the necessary member support.


Canada

In Canada, the most important cooperatives of this kind were the
wheat pools A wheat pool is a co-operative that markets grain (mostly wheat) on behalf of its farmer-members. In Canada in 1923 and 1924, three wheat pools were created. They were farmer-owned co-operatives, created to break the power of the large for-p ...
. These farmer-owned cooperatives bought and transported grain throughout Western Canada. They replaced the earlier privately and often foreign-owned grain buyers and came to dominate the market in the post-war period. By the 1990s, most had
demutualized Demutualization is the process by which a customer-owned mutual organization (''mutual'') or co-operative changes legal form to a joint stock company. It is sometimes called stocking or privatization. As part of the demutualization process, memb ...
(privatized), and several mergers occurred. Now all the former wheat pools are part of the
Viterra Viterra began as a Canadian grain handling business, the nation's largest grain handler, with its historic formative roots in prairie grain-handling cooperatives, among them the iconic Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. Viterra Inc grew into a global agr ...
corporation. Former wheat pools include: * Alberta Wheat Pool *
Manitoba Pool Elevators Manitoba Pool Elevators was a grain trade company founded in 1924. It became a subsidiary of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool until November 1932, when the Pool declared bankruptcy. In 1998 Alberta Wheat Pool and Manitoba Pool Elevators merged to for ...
*
Saskatchewan Wheat Pool The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool was a grain handling, agri-food processing and marketing company based in Regina, Saskatchewan. The Pool created a network of marketing alliances in North America and internationally which made it the largest agricul ...
*
United Grain Growers The United Grain Growers, or UGG, was a Canadian grain farmers' cooperative for grain storage and distribution that operated between 1917 and 2001. History In 1917, the Grain Growers' Grain Company (GGGC) merged with the Alberta Farmers' Co ...
Other agricultural marketing cooperatives in Canada include: *
Organic Meadow Cooperative Organic Meadow Cooperative is an agricultural cooperative in Ontario. The cooperative originated in 1989 after local farmers sitting around a kitchen table realized that commercialized farming practices were not Sustainability, sustainable for the ...
(organic dairy) *
Gay Lea Foods Co-operative Limited Gay Lea Foods Co-operative Limited is a dairy products cooperative, co-operative in Canada producing butter, sour cream, cottage cheese, whipped cream and lactose free milk for retail, foodservice, industrial and export markets. Gay Lea also produc ...
(dairy) *
Agropur The Agropur Dairy Cooperative, usually shortened to Agropur, is headquartered in Saint-Hubert, Longueuil, Quebec, Canada. Agropur Cooperative is a North American dairy cooperative founded in 1938. It is a supplier of products for the industri ...


Ecuador

The Amazon region of Ecuador is known for producing world-renowned cacao beans. In the Napo region 850 Kichwa families have come together with help from American biologist, Judy Logback, to form an agricultural marketing cooperatives, Kallari Association. This cooperative has helped increase benefits for the families involved as well as to protect and defend their Kichwa culture and the Amazon rainforest.


India

In India, there are networks of cooperatives at the local, regional, state and national levels that assist in agricultural marketing. The commodities that are mostly handled are food grains, jute, cotton, sugar, milk and nuts Dairy farming based on the Anand Pattern, with a single marketing cooperative, is India's largest self-sustaining industry and its largest rural employment provider. Successful implementation of the Anand model has made India the world's largest milk producer. Here small, marginal farmers with a couple or so heads of milch cattle queue up twice daily to pour milk from their small containers into the village union collection points. The milk after processing at the district unions is then marketed by the state cooperative federation nationally under the
Amul Anand Milk Union Limited (AMUL) is an Indian dairy state government cooperative society, based in Anand, Gujarat. Formed in 1946, it is a cooperative brand managed by Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF), which today i ...
brand name, India's largest food brand. With the Anand pattern three-fourths of the price paid by the mainly urban consumers goes into the hands of millions of small dairy farmers, who are the owners of the brand and the cooperative. The cooperative hires professionals for their expertise and skills and uses hi-tech research labs and modern processing plants & transport cold-chains, to ensure quality of their produce and value-add to the milk. Production of
sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...
from sugarcane mostly takes place at cooperative
sugar cane mill A sugar cane mill is a factory that processes sugar cane to produce raw or white sugar. The term is also used to refer to the equipment that crushes the sticks of sugar cane to extract the juice. Processing There are a number of steps in pro ...
s owned by local farmers. The shareholders include all farmers, small and large, supplying
sugarcane Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, Perennial plant, perennial grass (in the genus ''Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar Sugar industry, production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with ...
to the mill. Over the last sixty years, the local sugar mills have played a crucial part in encouraging rural political participation and as a stepping stone for aspiring politicians. This is particularly true in the state of
Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...
where a large number of politicians belonging to the Congress party or
NCP NCP may refer to: Science and medicine * Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (a temporary name for COVID-19), an outbreak that was officially identified in late 2019. * HIV-1 nucleocapsid protein 7 (NCp7), a target of zinc finger inhibitors * Nucleosome ...
had ties to sugar cooperatives from their respective local areas. Unfortunately, mismanagement and manipulation of the cooperative principles have made a number of these operations inefficient.


Israel

* Tnuva Central Cooperative for the Marketing of Agricultural Produce in Israel Ltd.


Netherlands

* Coöperatieve Nederlandse Bloembollencentrale (CNB) * Coforta *
Royal Cosun Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a ci ...
*
ZON NOS, SGPS S.A. is a Portuguese telecommunications and media company who provides mobile and fixed telephony, cable television, satellite television and internet. The company resulted from the merger in 2013 of two of the country's major telecom ...
*
FloraHolland Royal FloraHolland, legally Koninklijke Coöperatieve Bloemenveiling Royal FloraHolland U.A., is a Dutch conglomerate of florists. It is one of the largest auction companies in the world. Royal FloraHolland is headquartered in Aalsmeer, with ...
*
FrieslandCampina Royal FrieslandCampina N.V. is a Dutch multinational dairy cooperative which is based in Amersfoort, Netherlands. It is the result of a merger between Friesland Foods and Campina on 30 December 2008. The European Commission approved this merger ...


Ukraine

* Ukrainian cooperative movements


United States

*
American Legend Cooperative The American Legend Cooperative (ALC) was an agricultural marketing cooperative of mink fur farmers in the United States and Canada, best known for its Blackglama, American Legend brands of fur, as well as the older LEGEND brand. American Legen ...
(
mink Mink are dark-colored, semiaquatic, carnivorous mammals of the genera ''Neogale'' and '' Mustela'' and part of the family Mustelidae, which also includes weasels, otters, and ferrets. There are two extant species referred to as "mink": the A ...
fur Fur is a thick growth of hair that covers the skin of mammals. It consists of a combination of oily guard hair on top and thick underfur beneath. The guard hair keeps moisture from reaching the skin; the underfur acts as an insulating blanket t ...
) "Blackglama" brand *
Blue Diamond Growers Blue Diamond Growers is an agricultural cooperative and marketing organization that specializes in California almonds. Founded in 1910 as the California Almond Grower's Exchange, the organization claims to be the world's largest tree nut pro ...
(
almond The almond (''Prunus amygdalus'', syn. ''Prunus dulcis'') is a species of tree native to Iran and surrounding countries, including the Levant. The almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree. Within the genus ...
s) *
Cabot Creamery The Cabot Creamery Co-operative is an American dairy agricultural marketing cooperative, which is owned by more than 800 local dairy farmers in New England and upstate New York, and Agri-Mark Family Dairy Farms, Incorporated. Agri-Mark dates b ...
(
dairy A dairy is a business enterprise established for the harvesting or processing (or both) of animal milk – mostly from cows or buffaloes, but also from goats, sheep, horses, or camels – for human consumption. A dairy is typically located on ...
) *
Darigold Northwest Dairy Association (formerly the Northwest Dairymen's Association; Trading as Darigold, Inc.) is an American dairy agricultural marketing cooperative. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, it is owned by about 350 dairy farm members of ...
*
Diamond of California Diamond Foods was an American packaged food company based in San Francisco, that marketed nuts (particularly walnuts and almonds) and other snack foods. Diamond Foods was acquired by Snyder's-Lance in 2016, and as of 2018, Campbell Soup Compan ...
( nuts), formerly a cooperative * Dairylea Cooperative Inc. (Dairy), formerly Dairymen's League *
Dairy Farmers of America Dairy Farmers of America Inc. (DFA) is a national milk marketing cooperative in the United States. DFA markets members' raw milk and sells milk and derivative products (dairy products, food components, ingredients and shelf-stable dairy products) ...
*
Edible Garden An edible item is any item that is safe for humans to eat. "Edible" is differentiated from "eatable" because it does not indicate how an item tastes, only whether it is fit to be eaten. Nonpoisonous items found in nature – such as some mushroo ...
*
Florida's Natural Growers Florida's Natural Growers (stylized "Florida✾s Natural") is an agricultural cooperative based in Lake Wales, Florida. It is currently owned by over 1,100 grower members. It was the only national orange juice maker that uses only US-grown fr ...
(
citrus ''Citrus'' is a genus of flowering plant, flowering trees and shrubs in the rue family, Rutaceae. Plants in the genus produce citrus fruits, including important crops such as Orange (fruit), oranges, Lemon, lemons, grapefruits, pomelos, and lim ...
fruit)
GreenStone Farm Credit Services
inancial products and services*
Humboldt Creamery Humboldt Creamery was formerly an agricultural marketing cooperative located on the California North Coast currently owned by Foster Farms Dairy of Modesto, California. History The co-op produced as much as 10 million gallons of ice cream ann ...
(dairy), formerly a cooperative *
Land O'Lakes Land O'Lakes, Inc. is an American member-owned agricultural cooperative based in the Minneapolis-St. Paul suburb of Arden Hills, Minnesota, United States, focusing on the dairy industry. The cooperative has 1,959 direct producer-members, 751 ...
(
dairy A dairy is a business enterprise established for the harvesting or processing (or both) of animal milk – mostly from cows or buffaloes, but also from goats, sheep, horses, or camels – for human consumption. A dairy is typically located on ...
and farm supply) * Maine’s Own Organic Milk Company (dairy) *
Michigan Milk Producers Association Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
(dairy) *
Michigan Sugar Company Michigan Sugar Company is an agricultural cooperative, based in Bay City, Michigan, that specializes in the processing of beet sugar. Founded in 1906, Michigan Sugar sells beet sugar under the brand names ''Big Chief'' and ''Pioneer.'' Michiga ...
(sugar beets) * Ocean Spray (
cranberries Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus ''Oxycoccus'' of the genus ''Vaccinium''. In Britain, cranberry may refer to the native species ''Vaccinium oxycoccos'', while in North America, cranberry ...
and citrus fruit) *
Organic Valley Organic Valley (OV) is an organic food brand and independent cooperative of organic farmers based in La Farge, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1988, Organic Valley is the nation’s largest farmer-owned organic cooperative and one of the ...
(organic milk, cheese, eggs, soy, butter, yogurt, snack items) * Riceland Foods (
rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...
,
soybean The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean (''Glycine max'') is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean, which has numerous uses. Traditional unfermented food uses of soybeans include soy milk, from which tofu an ...
s,
corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
and
wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...
) * Snokist Growers (pears, apples, cherries) * Sunkist Growers, Incorporated (citrus fruit) * Sun-Maid (raisins) * Sunsweet Growers Incorporated (dried fruit, especially prunes) * Tillamook County Creamery Association (dairy) * Lone Star Milk Producers (dairy) * United Egg Producers * Welch Foods Inc. (Welch's)


Mexico

* Zapatista coffee cooperatives


Production cooperatives

These are cooperative farms, jointly owned or managed by a cooperative society.


Cuba


See also

* Winemaking cooperative


References


Further reading

* McBride, Glynn (2014), Agricultural Cooperatives: Their Why and Their How * Derr, Jascha (2013)
''The cooperative movement of Brazil and South Africa''
* Zvi Galor {{DEFAULTSORT:Agricultural Cooperative Agricultural marketing organizations, Agricultural labor, Cooperative Agricultural production Agricultural cooperatives, Rural community development Agricultural economics, Cooperative