Impact of Agricultural Cooperatives on Farmers’ Collective Action: A Study Based on the Socio-Ecological System Framework

Abstract

Agricultural cooperatives greatly influence agricultural and rural modernization in China. Based on 381 farmer samples in the arid Tarim River Basin, this empirical study aimed to construct an index system for the exploration of the relationship between cooperatives and farmers’ collective action by using the Socio-Ecological System framework. The results showed that agricultural cooperatives helped to empower farmers to act collectively. Agricultural cooperatives, with the mechanisms of collective decision making, institutional constraints, and internal supervision, could realize the integration of resources required for farmers’ collective action and promote the sharing of risks and benefits. By providing financing support and a platform for resource integration, cooperatives could reduce constrains induced by economic difference among farmers; enhance village leadership, organization, and coordination; and promote the accumulation of social capital and villagers’ sense of identity with the village. Particularly, cooperatives could support farmers to adopt water-saving irrigation technologies and reduce their over-dependence on chemical pesticides and fertilizers, thus promoting farmers’ collective action. Therefore, the development of agricultural cooperatives will help enhance farmers’ collective action, promote the modernization of rural governance, and realize rural revitalization.

The Significance of Agricultural Modernization Development for Agricultural Carbon Emission Efficiency in China

“…At present, constrained by the dispersal of land parcels, Chinese agriculture is still dominated by the micro-organizational structure of smallholder farming, which makes it difficult to achieve large-scale, industrialized, and intensive management. New agricultural management bodies such as agricultural cooperatives and family farms can enhance the collective action of farmers through the consolidation of resources and the provision of technological and financial support [67], thereby promoting the effective convergence of the smallholder farming economy and agricultural modernization. However, it has also been pointed out that Chinese cooperatives have the problems of shell cooperatives with irregular operation [68,69], which is not conducive to carbon emission reduction, so guaranteed initiatives by the government are crucial to achieving agricultural modernization.…”