Download or read book Coffee Co operatives and Competition written by Anna Milford and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Capital Formation in Kenyan Farmer owned Cooperatives written by Pekka Jämsén and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 1999 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper summarizes the main findings of a case study of capital formation and investment in a small sample of large coffee and dairy cooperatives in Kenya and provides some practical recommendations for improving capital formation in these two co-operative sectors.
Download or read book Cooperatives the State and Corporate Power in African Export Agriculture written by KARIN. WEDIG and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-09-30 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agriculture is a major contributor to Africa's GDP, the region's biggest source of employment and its largest food producer. However, agricultural productivity remains low and buyer-driven global value chains offer few opportunities for small producers to upgrade into higher value-added activities. In recent years, the revival of Africa's cooperatives has been celebrated by governments and international donors as a pathway towards inclusive agricultural development, and this book explores the strengths but also the issues which surround these cooperatives. The book scrutinizes the neoliberal ideal of economic prosperity arising through the operation of liberalized labor markets by illuminating the discriminatory nature of Uganda's informal labor relations. It points to the role of cooperatives as a potential instrument of progressive change in African export agriculture, where large numbers of small producers depend on casual wage work in addition to farming. In contrast to the portrayal, advanced by some governments and rarely questioned by donors, of an unproblematic co-existence of small producers' collective action and big capital interests, the author calls for a re-politicized debate on the Social and Solidarity Economy. As part of this, she highlights the adverse political and economic conditions faced by African cooperatives, including intense international competition in agricultural processing, inadequate access to infrastructure and services, and at times antagonistic state-cooperative relations. Supported by wide-ranging interdisciplinary evidence, including new ethnographic, survey and interview data, this book shows how cooperatives may be co-opted by both the state and corporations in a discourse that ignores structural inequalities in value chains and emphasizes poverty reduction over economic and political empowerment. It provides a critique of New Institutional Economics as a framework for understanding how institutions shape redistribution, and develops a political economy approach to explore the conditions for structural change in African export agriculture.
Download or read book Analyzing Organic and Fairtrade Certification Schemes Participation and Welfare Effects on Small Scale Farmers in Coffee Value Chains written by Tina Beuchelt and published by Cuvillier Verlag. This book was released on 2012-05-30 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Organic and Fairtrade certified coffees have become very popular among socially, environmentally and health conscious consumers in recent years. As consumers pay higher prices for these certified coffees, it is commonly assumed that, compared to conventional coffee, better producer prices are paid and that higher shares of the added value in consuming countries trickle down to the producers. Coffee certifications are thus supposed to benefit the coffee producers. Coffee is an important export good for many developing countries. The majority of global coffee production comes from around 20-25 million smallholder families in developing countries. As individual certifications are too expensive smallholders have to participate in farmer organizations, e.g. cooperatives, in order to access cheaper group certification. Governments and international donors support coffee certification schemes and assume that these link farmers to high-value markets, increase producers’ incomes, change power and information asymmetries in value chains, and contribute to poverty reduction. Yet, there is only weak empirical evidence that justifies this support. There are few quantitative studies which applied random sampling techniques, and analyzed the effects of certification schemes in regard of gross margins, profits, income shares and poverty levels of certified smallholder coffee producers. The role of cooperatives for the success of certification schemes has been neglected by research. The available studies have methodological limitations, for example they are based on qualitative methods only, include no more than one cooperative or one certification standard, or cooperatives are non-randomly sampled. This research seeks to fill the identified knowledge and methodological gaps. Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative research, the production and marketing strategies of small-scale coffee producers in northern Nicaragua are compared based on producers that are organized in conventional, organic, and Organic-Fairtrade certified cooperatives. The analysis addresses (i) the smallholders’ household level and (ii) the organizational and institutional level with regard of the cooperatives and respective coffee value chains. The study aims at, first, identifying the socio-economic costs and benefits of participation in organic and Organic-Fairtrade certified coffee chains with respect to level of coffee and household incomes as well as household poverty. Second, it is examined which role the farmer organizations, their respective business models and upgrading strategies, play for the success or failure of certification schemes. Third, the integration of coffee farmers and their cooperatives into the coffee value chain, the structure and functioning of the value chains and the value adding effect of certification is examined. The survey was conducted in the northern Nicaragua departments Madriz, Nueva Segovia, and Matagalpa on coffee farms situated between 900m and 1300m a.s.l. The coffee of all farmers was classified as ‘Strictly High Grown’; the species is Coffea Arabica. The sample design ensured that the research region was homogeneous with respect to living conditions, socio-economic level, as well as coffee growing characteristics driving performance of coffee farmers. After having randomly selected the cooperatives, 327 coffee producing households were also randomly selected and surveyed with a structured questionnaire. Qualitative data collection consisted in total of 58 key-person interviews, 67 semi-structured farmer interviews and 24 focus group discussions with coffee farmers. The primary data was collected during two research stays in 2007 and 2008. This research analyzes gross margins, accounting and economic profits of coffee production. The household income is measured and a poverty headcount index elaborated. Principal component analysis is used to determine current relative poverty levels and the development of relative poverty over time. A SWOT analysis identifies the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of cooperatives. Through a value chain analysis information on the actors, power and information flows as well as price shares is gained. For identifying the farmers’ experiences with coffee certification schemes, a thematic analysis is applied to the qualitative data by developing an individual code system for datareduction. In the research region, the coffee yields of conventional and certified coffee smallholders are usually 40% to 50% lower than national average due to limited maintenance activities and inadequately managed coffee plantations. Highest yields (on average around 480kg/ha) are achieved by organic producers but yield levels vary, like for conventional and Organic-Fairtrade certified producers, between the cooperatives (ranging from 293kg/ha to 516kg/ha). In comparison to conventional prices, Organic-Fairtrade certified coffee achieved on average 11% and organic coffee 8% higher farm-gate prices; price differences between cooperatives also exist. Organic production processes require fewer purchased inputs but are more laborious. Due to constrained availability of family labor, additional labor has to be hired which offsets saved input costs. The higher prices of certified coffees compensate for production costs but fail to increase per hectare gross margins and profits in the case of Organic-Fairtrade farmers compared to conventional produces. Due to higher yield levels, organic producers experience an increase in per hectare gross margins and profits. They have with 328US$/ha a significantly higher economic profit than Organic-Fairtrade farmers (147US$/ha) and conventional farmers (191US$/ha). Yet, as they tend to have smaller coffee areas and larger family sizes, the increase in gross margins does not result in improved per capita net coffee incomes for organic certified producers compared to the other groups. Also Organic-Fairtrade certified producers do not have higher per capita net coffee incomes than conventional producers. Among organic and Organic-Fairtrade certified producers, a higher share of households is grouped below the extreme poverty line than among conventional producers (45% compared to 30%) – which means that they cannot cover their food requirements. Between 60% and 70% of conventional and certified coffee producers are below the national poverty line. Using principal component analysis to investigate several dimensions of poverty and their development over time, it was found that over a period of ten years, organic certified producers became relatively poorer. In the year 1997, all groups had similar relative poverty levels. The Organic-Fairtrade certified producers first improved their relative poverty status during the coffee crisis (in 2002) and were relatively better off than conventional producers. Since then, the relative poverty levels of Organic-Fairtrade producers deteriorated compared to conventional producers. Irrespective of whether farmers were certified or not, Nicaragua’s coffee smallholders face two to three months of food shortages per year during which they seek off-farm employment, and apply for formal and informal credits. In many cases the credit is used for immediate consumption needs, like food or medicine, and only partially invested in the farm. Consequently, harvested yields stay low, leading to low incomes and new credit requirements. When farmers are financially illiterate or requested higher credits than their payment capacity, they are likely to enter a vicious cycle of indebtedness. Each cooperative has a unique business model; they differ, for example, in member size, functions and services, internal organization, and financial characteristics. Despite their different business models the cooperatives often choose the same upgrading strategies as other cooperatives mainly certification, quality, and own processing. The analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOTs) showed that the cooperatives have certain SWOTs in common but there are also cooperative specific SWOTs. The common strength of the cooperatives is the quality potential of the region. The common weaknesses relate to the lack of credit access, a weak extension system, and weak rural infrastructure. The common threats of the cooperatives are high competition among national coffee buyers and cooperatives, corruption and mismanagement, and, according to the qualitative interviews, increasing microclimatic variations and unreliable rainfall patterns. The common opportunities range from more horizontal coordination to reduce transaction costs to share certificates acknowledging the members’ possessions in the cooperative and increased transparency about deductions on payments. Qualitative evaluation indicated no obvious association between the coffee certification strategy of farmers/their cooperative and the coffee gross margins farmers obtained. The upgrading strategies of cooperatives, the strengths and weaknesses as well as the amount of coffee-related services, which the cooperative offers to producers, tend to be more related to coffee gross margins than the organic or Organic-Fairtrade certification. Farmers are found to have no bargaining power over prices irrespective of the value chain, while certified cooperatives have limited bargaining power towards their buyers compared to cooperatives in the conventional chain. Power is unequally distributed between buyers and sellers of coffee in all chains. The quantity and quality of information flows depends on the cooperative and value chain model. Information asymmetries are fewer in certified chains; yet this also depends on the cooperative. Organic-Fairtrade certified value chains tend to have more and smaller-sized actors, especially in consuming countries, compared to the conventional chain. This increases transaction costs in the certified value chains and thus leads to substantially lower producers’ share of the final coffee retail price (8%-15% in certified chains compared to 24%-34% in conventional chains). The presented results depend strongly on each cooperative and there are large variations within the organic and Organic-Fairtrade certified cooperatives. It can be concluded that higher farm-gate coffee prices do not lead necessarily to higher per capita net coffee and household income, as yield levels, production costs, family and land size, as well as labor availability play important roles. Organic or Organic-Fairtrade certification as an upgrading strategy seems only then successful when the business model of a cooperative, its strengths, weaknesses, and other upgrading strategies are supportive. Given the constraints mentioned above, a well functioning cooperative is a necessary but not sufficient condition. This was shown by the example of one well run Organic-Fairtrade certified cooperative with low gross margins showed. The main causes of continuing poverty among smallholder coffee growers in northern Nicaragua seem not the lack of market access or so-called ‘unfair’ trading conditions. Based on the qualitative analysis, reasons for poverty are lack of entrepreneurial and management skills of farmers and cooperative staff, financial illiteracy and indebtedness of farmers as well as a very weak rural infrastructure. Based on the quantitative results potential reasons for poverty are low yield and productivity levels, land and labor constraints. Certification schemes do not address or are able to solve these problems. Prices for certified coffee cannot compensate for low productivity, land or labor constraints. Therefore, certification schemes can only be part of a viable development policy for poor small-scale farmers in northern Nicaragua; the production, infrastructural, organizational and institutional problems mentioned above require even more attention from policy makers. It is recommended that policies, which aim at increasing smallholder coffee incomes through upgrading, should focus apart from production aspects on the institutional context of smallholders and their cooperatives. Regarding coffee production, policies should address coffee yield levels, for example through research investments in improved, stress-tolerant and locally adapted varieties to encounter the microclimatic variations. Coffee quality in the region should be further strengthened by a supportive coffee sector strategy at the national level, which should include a national coffee institute or federation like in Colombia or Costa Rica. This should be accompanied by investments in rural infrastructure. It is recommended to establish an efficient extension system which also addresses the entrepreneurial skills of farmers. This could be also in form of facilitating the establishment of extension associations which could operate regionally and be financed by their members’ contribution. In order to better link farmers to (high-value) markets and to increase their income, it is recommended to focus more on the structure and functioning of producer organizations and their respective value chains. Business and strategic advice to cooperatives is necessary, as cooperative leaders and staff are not fit for international markets, in which they have to act. A banking system which also provides credits to cooperatives (at market interest rates and lending conditions) would reduce the reliance and dependence on exporters or international credit providers and could ease liquidity constraints of cooperatives. An obligatory annual external auditing of cooperatives, like it exists in other countries, is considered to be important to reduce mismanagement of a cooperative. It will also increase the creditworthiness of cooperatives for banks. Trade, processing, and marketing efficiencies in the organic but especially in the Fairtrade value chains in consuming countries need to be improved in the alternative trade sector with its many small profit or non-profit enterprizes and organizations. These actors could consolidate to exert economies of scale and reduce their transaction costs. Consolidation is certainly a new way of thinking in the alternative trade sector but could effectively contribute to improve farmers’ shares of retail prices and raise farm-gate coffee prices.
Download or read book An Assessment of Factors Influencing the Market Performance of Coffee Farmers Cooperatives In Melka Balo Woreda written by Fethi Omer and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 8 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Productivity of smallholder agriculture lingers at subsistence level, primarily due to the unreliable supply and unaffordable prices of farm inputs, and poor rural marketing infrastructure. Cooperatives are indispensable institutions for addressing such a structural problem. In Ethiopia, inefficiencies in the coffee markets primarily hurts the income of coffee farmers and discourages their production and marketing of coffee, and secondly it also significantly decreases the country's foreign exchange that should have been obtained from coffee production and trading. This suggests that it is very crucial to study and monitor the performance of coffee markets in all coffee producing areas of the country and improve their efficiency. The study was initiated with the objectives of investigate major marketing problems of coffee cooperatives of farmers, to assess the major constrains that exist in the channel members and to recommend the better placement of coffee product as well as the positioning of Kurtu Cooperative Society. The research design is descriptive in nature and the data for this study were collected both from primary and secondary sources. Primary data was collected using two types of questionnaire, one for the coffee producers (farmers) who are members of the cooperatives and the other for wholesalers and retailers. According to the results of the study, sample cooperatives were characterized by lack of marketing facilities, shortage of land, poor road infrastructural problems, prevalence of diseases that influence farmer's market performances and also traders business were lack of road, lack of transportation, and also the constraints indicated by wholesalers and retailers with respect to coffee marketing include delay in unloading coffee at ECX which creates additional cost and the most important marketing problems reported by the traders include too much competition with unlicensed traders and the overall storage of coffee supply.
Download or read book Costa Rica After Coffee written by Lowell Gudmundson and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2021-10-20 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Costa Rica After Coffee explores the political, social, and economic place occupied by the coffee industry in contemporary Costa Rican history. In this follow-up to the 1986 classic Costa Rica Before Coffee, Lowell Gudmundson delves deeply into archival sources, alongside the individual histories of key coffee-growing families, to explore the development of the co-op movement, the rise of the gourmet coffee market, and the societal transformations Costa Rica has undergone as a result of the coffee industry’s powerful presence in the country. While Costa Rican coffee farmers and co-ops experienced a golden age in the 1970s and 1980s, the emergence and expansion of a gourmet coffee market in the 1990s drastically reduced harvest volumes. Meanwhile, urbanization and improved education among the Costa Rican population threatened the continuance of family coffee farms, because of the lack of both farmland and a successor generation of farmers. As the last few decades have seen a rise in tourism and other industries within the country, agricultural exports like coffee have ceased to occupy the same crucial space in the Costa Rican economy. Gudmundson argues that the fulfillment of promises of reform from the co-op era had the paradoxical effect of challenging the endurance of the coffee industry.
Download or read book The Cooperative Movement written by Richard C. Williams and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-23 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Williams surveys the history of the cooperative movement from its origins in the 18th century and deals with the theory of cooperation, as contrasted with the 'Standard Economic Model', based on competition. The book contains the results of field studies of a number of successful cooperatives both in the developed and developing world. It includes insights from personal interviews of cooperative members and concludes by considering the successes and challenges of the cooperative movement as an alternative to the global neo-colonialism and imperialism that now characterizes free-market capitalist approaches to globalization. The book considers democratic and local control of essential economic activities such as the production, distribution, and retailing of goods and services. It suggests that cooperative approaches to these economic activities are already reducing poverty and resulting in equitable distributions of wealth and income without plundering the resources of developing countries.
Download or read book Cooperatives the State and Corporate Power in African Export Agriculture written by Karin Wedig and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-02-22 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agriculture is a major contributor to Africa’s GDP, the region’s biggest source of employment and its largest food producer. However, agricultural productivity remains low and buyer-driven global value chains offer few opportunities for small producers to upgrade into higher value-added activities. In recent years, the revival of Africa’s cooperatives has been celebrated by governments and international donors as a pathway towards inclusive agricultural development, and this book explores the strengths but also the issues which surround these cooperatives. The book scrutinizes the neoliberal ideal of economic prosperity arising through the operation of liberalized labor markets by illuminating the discriminatory nature of Uganda’s informal labor relations. It points to the role of cooperatives as a potential instrument of progressive change in African export agriculture, where large numbers of small producers depend on casual wage work in addition to farming. In contrast to the portrayal, advanced by some governments and rarely questioned by donors, of an unproblematic co-existence of small producers’ collective action and big capital interests, the author calls for a re-politicized debate on the Social and Solidarity Economy. As part of this, she highlights the adverse political and economic conditions faced by African cooperatives, including intense international competition in agricultural processing, inadequate access to infrastructure and services, and at times antagonistic state-cooperative relations. Supported by wide-ranging interdisciplinary evidence, including new ethnographic, survey and interview data, this book shows how cooperatives may be co-opted by both the state and corporations in a discourse that ignores structural inequalities in value chains and emphasizes poverty reduction over economic and political empowerment. It provides a critique of New Institutional Economics as a framework for understanding how institutions shape redistribution, and develops a political economy approach to explore the conditions for structural change in African export agriculture.
Download or read book Determinants of Profit Efficiency of Coffee Marketing Cooperatives written by Hailemichael Mulie and published by LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. This book was released on 2012-06 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coffee is the major export item for Ethiopia's economy produced and exported to Britain, America and Japan Markets at large by Cooperative Unions. Despite the fact that cooperatives in Ethiopia are marketing coffee at national and international markets, they are also facing fierce competition in international market. Therefore, they have to improve their operational as well as economical efficiency so as to survive and out compete in international markets. The research is conducted with the objective of measuring their level of profit efficiency and to analyze the determinant factors that hinder profit efficiency of cooperatives. The researcher used a mixed paradigm of Quantitative and qualitative Approaches and applies two econometric models. Two Soft wares namely Frontier 4.1 and Stata version 9 were used for the analysis. The research found that both institutional factors such as access to credit, timely distribution of inputs like fertilizer extension service and house hold variables such as education, experience in coffee production and marketing and labor cost were responsible for the low profit efficiency of cooperatives.
Download or read book Coffee certification in East Africa impact on farms families and cooperatives written by Ruerd Ruben and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-09-04 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Certification of coffee producers is frequently suggested as a promising strategy for improving the position of smallholder farmers in the market. After the launch of the first Fairtrade label in 1988, several other standards have been promoted either by voluntary agencies (Utz-certified) or by private coffee companies. Each coffee label relies on different strategies for enhancing sustainable production and responsible trade. Coffee certification in East Africa is of a rather recent nature but has been rapidly expanding, representing currently 26 percent of the world's sustainable certified coffee supply. Marketing channels, cooperative organisation and household structures show notable differences between Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia. Empirical studies on the effects of standards for smallholders are scarce. This book intends to deepen our understanding on the role and functions of coffee certification regimes, based on three innovative approaches: (1) longitudinal field survey data capturing changes in coffee farming systems and effects on household welfare; (2) in-depth interviews and behavioural experiments regarding risk attitudes, trust and investments at cooperative level; and (3) detailed discourse analyses regarding gender roles and female bargaining power within coffee households. The chapters included in this book provide new and original evidence about the impact of coffee certification based on large-scale field surveys and in-depth interviews.
Download or read book Fair Trade written by and published by Routledge. This book was released on with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Cooperatives in the Global Economy written by Tapas R. Dash and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-05-19 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cooperatives in the Global Economy presents a unique collection of research-based chapters contributed by leading social and economic thinkers that provide critical insights into how the cooperative business model meets the challenges of the complex global problems in today’s competitive economy. Apart from theoretical arguments in favor of the value-based cooperative business model, this book presents the performance indicators of various forms of cooperatives, their potentialities, and challenges they face across borders. The contributors reexamine how cooperatives empower the marginalized population of the world by bringing them into the mainstream of socio-economic activities through creating employment opportunities, working towards alleviation of poverty, ensuring for more equitable distribution of scarce resources, and providing the basis for a sustainable economy and its meaningful growth. Today, in the global competitive economy, the challenges for cooperatives are enormous due to their particular value commitments, forms of incorporation, and organizational structures. In spite of the presence of several challenges, cooperatives promote economic growth and social justice. In this context, this book also presents the critical roles of cooperatives in balancing economic, social, and environmental concerns to build a better, equitable, and sustainable world.
Download or read book Cooperation for competition written by Gian Nicola Francesconi and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-08-28 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout history, rural smallholders have formed various forms of associations to confront access-barriers to the market. It is estimated that 250 million farmers participate in agricultural cooperatives in developing countries. Agricultural cooperatives are considered to be a fundamental pillar of rural development strategies, as well as a core institution in the process of governance decentralization and agri-business development. In Ethiopia, where agro-ecological conditions are generally favourable, 85 percent of the national population lives in rural areas under subsistence or semi-subsistence regimes. Agricultural cooperatives are advocated by the government as key market institutions to exploit Ethiopia's agricultural growth potential. The scope of this study is to improve the understanding of the role played by cooperative organizations in linking Ethiopian smallholder farmers to emerging markets. Through exploring the evolution of supermarkets, integrated supply chains, and global commodity exchange networks, this study sheds light on the relationship between rural cooperation and farmers' competitiveness. Quantitative data that form the basis for this study were collected from the Highland regions of Ethiopia, in the period between 2003 and 2006. Findings suggest that cooperatives are not a panacea to boost rural competitiveness. Collective action assists smallholders in procuring state subsidy for production, but does not necessarily lead to increased commercialization. Only when collective action involves collective marketing do farmers become more commercial, further improving production volumes and productivity. However, in the process of commercialization and production intensification quality management is often neglected in Ethiopian agricultural cooperatives. This study reveals guidelines for public-private partnerships so that cooperative farmers can maximize commercialization and optimize the balance between quality and productivity.
Download or read book Comprehensive Commerce written by and published by East African Publishers. This book was released on with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fair Trade Coffee Cooperatives written by Michael Euler and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Annual Co operative Congress written by and published by . This book was released on 1926 with total page 824 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Development of Cooperative Enterprises 1967 written by United States. Agency for International Development and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: