MODULE 1

The principles and benefits of farm-level co-operation

3. Benefits and future challenges of cooperation  in agriculture

In this final module we’ll summarize some elements emerged from the analysis of the framework of cooperation and from the experiences collected by the CO-FARM project, that can be divided in

  • economic benefit of cooperation in agriculture
  • social benefit  of cooperation in agriculture.

We’ll focus finally on the evolution of cooperation, defining the main challenges of cooperation for the future of agriculture,  reporting a synthesis of the opinions collected in many interviews of people involved in cooperation experiences.

From the analysis of the target group of CO-FARM project the following main possible economic benefits of cooperation in agriculture were identified

  • Increased scale of business and activities
  • Achievement of economies of scale
  • Increased purchasing power
  • Lower costs thanks to the sharing of tools (i.e. services, machinery)
  • Sharing of labour
  • Reduced capital expenditure for investment
  • More efficient management
  • Taxation benefits
  • More opportunity to access financial support

In terms of the possible social benefits of cooperation in agriculture the following elements emerged:

  • Quality of life, more time off, less work stress
  • Reduced isolation, exchange with other family farmers
  • Increasing the satisfaction from farming
  • Less problems due to illness or being unable to work
  • Increases knowledge sharing
  • Creation of local communities
  • Increasing of social cohesion
  • Opportunity for social inclusion (social farming)

Cooperation in agriculture increased in last years, thanks to the development processes and to the European policies. However it’s necessary to continue promoting  the awareness of the role of cooperation and  improving some aspects of cooperation systems.  The main challenges include the need to:

  • Increase the confidence of farmers
  • Extend the cooperation between farmers
  • Support the creation of forms of cooperation adequate to the needs of farmers
  • Increase the decisional role of farmers in the cooperatives
  • Increase the role of cooperation in the market
  • Foster the innovative spirit of cooperatives
  • Improve the competences and skills of the management of cooperatives

Cooperation is a basic instinct of human community. The collaboration between families represented the traditional way of life of rural population. We hope that you can get from the content and from the experiences of other farmers, new ideas for your cooperation activity, following these quotes:

Choose your allies and learn to fight in company, because nobody wins a war alone. (Paolo Coelho - Writer)

Personal growth, business and investment are team sports (Robert Toru Kyiosaki – Manager)

Co-operation approaches among different actors in the Union agriculture sector, forestry sector and food chain and other actors that contribute to achieving the objectives and priorities of rural development policy, (EU Regulation n. 1305/13 Article 35)

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SELF-ASSESMENT

This questionnaire will allow you to evaluate the competences acquired by studying the module.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
CO-FARM: Enhancing COoperation amongst FARMing entrepreneurs
Project Number: 2016-1-IE01-KA202-016870

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