{ Cooperative farming is a system in which individual farmers pool their resources (excluding land) to buy commodities such as seeds and fertilizers, and services such as marketing.}
It is a system of farming found throughout the world and is particularly widespread in Denmark and the ex-Soviet republics, in a collective farm where land is also held in common.
In Israel, farmers have nearly perfected cooperative farming. Moshavim are types of cooperative agricultural communities of individual farms pioneered by the Jewish immigration, during the early 20th Century.
The moshavim are similar to kibbutzim with an emphasis on community labor, But contrary to the collective kibbutzim, farms in moshav tended to be individually owned but of fixed and equal size.
Workers produced crops and goods on their properties through individual or pooled labor and resources and used profit and foodstuffs to provide for themselves, thus creating a system where good farmers were better off than bad ones, unlike in the communal kibbutzim where all members enjoyed the same living standard.
However, Small holder farmers gain big benefits from agricultural cooperatives including bargaining power and resource sharing that may lead to food security and poverty reduction for millions of people.
The importance of agricultural cooperatives in improving the lives of millions of smallholder farmers and their families cannot be overstated.
{{Benefits of cooperative agriculture}}
Empowered by being a part of a larger group, smallholder farmers can negotiate better terms in contract farming and lower prices for agricultural inputs like seeds, fertilizer and equipment. In addition, cooperatives offer prospects that smallholder farmers would not be able to achieve individually such as helping them to secure land rights and better market opportunities.
Ranging from small-scale to multi-million dollar businesses across the globe, cooperatives operate in all sectors of the economy, count over 800 million members and provide 100 million jobs worldwide – 20 per cent more than multinational enterprises.
In 2008, the largest 300 cooperatives in the world had an aggregate turnover of US$1.1 trillion, comparable to the gross domestic product (GDP) of many large countries.
Agriculture, including farming, forestry, fisheries and livestock, is the main source of employment and income in rural areas, where the majority of the world’s poor and hungry people live.
Agricultural cooperatives play an important role in supporting men and women small agricultural producers and marginalized groups by creating sustainable rural employment.
Producer cooperatives offer men and women smallholders market opportunities, and provide them with services such as better training in natural resource management, and better access to information, technologies, innovations and extension services.
Through support from the government and other organizations, smallholders can achieve sustainable livelihoods, improve food security in their communities and play a greater role in meeting the growing demand for food on local, national and international markets.
In Brazil, cooperatives were responsible for 37.2 percent of agricultural GDP and 5.4 percent of overall GDP in 2009, and earned about US$3.6 billion from exports. In Mauritius, cooperatives account for more than 60 percent of national production in the food crop sector and in Kenya the savings and credit cooperatives have assets worth US$2.7 billion, which account for 31 percent of gross national savings.
{{How to support agriculture cooperatives}}
• Carrying out initiatives to better understand cooperatives and assess their socio-economic development impact, and to raise awareness of their role and impact on the lives of men and women smallholder farmers.
• Supporting cooperatives to form networks through which smallholder producers can pool their assets and competencies to overcome market barriers and other constraints such as a lack of access to natural resources;
• Assisting policy-makers in the design and implementation of policies, laws, regulations and projects that take into consideration the needs and concerns of both men and women smallholder farmers and create enabling environment for agricultural cooperatives to thrive; and
• Strengthening the dialogue and cooperation between governments, agricultural cooperatives, the international research community and civil society representatives on analyzing the best conditions for cooperatives worldwide to develop.
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