State of Agricultural Cooperatives in Asia: An Overview, Characteristics and Development Issues Involved

Abstract

Agricultural cooperatives are widely prevalent institutions in rural Asia. Their contributions in food security efforts, upliftment of social and economic standards of farmers and to the national economies are very significant. Nearly 56% of the total population of rural Asia is covered under these institutions. They serve their farmer-members in many ways e.g., supply, marketing, credit, expert guidance, farm processing, insurance sectors and hence provide some elements of social and economic security to them. Although their spread in the Asia-Pacific Region is wide and broad, their management systems vary from country to country in the Region. There are outstanding examples of efficient management of these institutions such as in Japan, Korea and India while in some other countries they are still struggling to find the most appropriate modalities to strengthen and professionalise their management systems. Several factors are responsible for this variation e.g., lack of enlightened and professional managers, legislative defects in covering cooperative management, controls exercised by governments due to political compulsions, low level of capital mobilisation due to inherent weak financial conditions of their members, lack of guidance and technical support provided by governments, lack of marketing opportunities and market information network, to just name a few.