Agriculture Economics

Co-operation:Co-operation is considered to be a movement.-A volunteer cooperation of the people to attain

common objectives-- principle of “individual for all, all for individual”

Mr. Citric Land, registerar cooperative societies Pujab, defined cooperative as, ”there are three basic

principle of cooperative cosiety, as: 1) members join it voluntarily,

2) it is formulated on deomcratic rprinciple of one vote,

3) the ethhical aspect in it is as important as its economic aspect

Areas of cooperation in agri sectort:

a) Credit/financing purposesb) Cooperative farming

c) Cooperative marketing

Cooperative credit societies:

The history goes back to pre-partition era.

Cooperative Societies Act was passed in 1904. Another Act was passed in 1912 to strengthen and expand the previous Act.

Majority (98%) of the societies that were established were credit societies.

Structure of the Credit Cooperative Societies:i) Primary Societies

ii) Central Cooperative Societiesiii) Provincial Cooperative Societies

History and Failure of Credit Cooperative Societies:i) Social, Political and edministrative environmentii) Poverty, illetracy, social traidtions, individualistic

attitude of the peopleiii) Vested interests of the admisinstration

iv) Low ethical standards

Cooperative Farming:Volunteer organisation formed by combining the

physical and financial resources to mutually benefit each other

Need for Cooperative Farming:oSmall holdings and mechanized farmingoLower purchasing power of the farmersoEconomies of scale approach to reduce cost and increase outputoReduced exploitation by arthiyas and middlemenoCooperatives are prefered by govt and donors for funding and consultancy servicesoOptimal use of resources e.g; land, labor etc.

Objectives of Cooperative Farming:oSave farmers from exploitationoReplacing orthodox, low technology farming by mechanized farmingoOptimal use of land and labor resourcesoSocio-economic change

Histroy of Cooperative Farming in Pakistan:oFirst time practiced in 1948, forced cooperation under govt supervision. It failed due to i) forced participation (12.5 acres of land) and ii) less involvement option for the peopleoIn 2nd Five Year plan, ‘‘Cooperative Land management’’ system was introduced. It failed due to absence of modern agri practices by the farmers

oNational Scheme of Cooperatives was introduced. Members of the cooperatives will collect their resources at one place and their property rights were retained. Govt provided subsidies to these cooperatives over seeds, fertilizers, tractors, etc.

Hurdles to cooperative farming:oFarmers never agree to share their property rightsoNo awareness about the importance of the cooperativesoCaste system division of the peopleoDishnoest and biased administration

Successful cases of cooperative farming:Russia, China, Israel, Egypt and Italy they practice group-farmingRussia was centrally planned economy but now moving towards individualistic farming

Cooperative Marketing:Aim ofteh cooperative marketing is to purchase the output from the farmers, at fair prices

Objectives of Cooperative Marketing:oGive fair prices to farmers, especially small farmersoArthiiyas and commission agensts expoit rural and urban cnsumers alike so to reduce their roleoOffer transportation, storage and otehr facilities to farmers

Structure of Cooperative Marketing:o’Commission Shops’ @ 3% commissionoFarmers bring the output to the shopsoMotive of these shops is to give fair prices to the farmers

Problems of Cooperative Marketing:oLimited and timely roleoLimited resources with societies oInability to provide transportation and other facilities to farmersoArthiyas and commission agents are strongly rootedoDepartmental and administrative formalities of these societies

Concluding remarks on Cooperative Movement:oHybrid form of socialism thats why much criticizedoCorporate farming, globalization are more dominant features of the world than cooperative farmingoIn Pakistan, corporate farming is favored more by the govts and IMF, alike