Farmers' Cooperatives and Sustainable Food Systems in Europe
Farmers' Cooperatives and Sustainable Food Systems in Europe

Author: Raquel Ajates Gonzalez

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-06-13

Total Pages: 427

ISBN-13: 1351216287

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Farmers' cooperatives are very prevalent in the European Union, where they account for approximately half of agricultural trade and thus are key to articulating rural realities and in shaping the sustainability credentials of European food and farming. This book analyses to what extent farmers' cooperatives are working to benefit their members, are showing concern for their communities and are promoting cooperative economies. It offers a multilevel set of theoretical, disciplinary, methodological, empirical and social perspectives, using the UK and Spain as contrasting examples, and analyses whether agricultural cooperatives contribute to achieving sustainable food systems. The book presents empirical data from diverse and rich case studies, from large, international cooperatives, to small, multi-stakeholder initiatives. This provides an alternative viewpoint to that of economics, which tends to dominate the study of agricultural cooperatives. The author presents a new theoretical framework that provides a novel lens to study farmers’ cooperatives as organisations deeply embedded in power dynamics of the food system and agricultural policy that shape and constraint their potential to adopt cooperative and sustainable practices. The book is a major addition to the study of agricultural cooperatives and their impact in the development of fairer and more sustainable food systems and it is one of the first detailed accounts of multi-stakeholder food and farming cooperatives in Europe. It is a valuable resource for all scholars working on cooperatives, as well as for students studying agricultural and food policy, environmental justice and rural sociology.

The Agricultural Cooperative in the Framework of the European Cooperative Society
The Agricultural Cooperative in the Framework of the European Cooperative Society

Author: Georg Miribung

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-04-09

Total Pages: 570

ISBN-13: 3030441547

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This book assesses the Statute for a European Cooperative Society (SCE) regarding agricultural activities by comparing how specific questions arising in this context must be dealt with under the Italian and Austrian legal systems. In this regard, Council Regulation (EC) No. 1435/2003, of 22 July 2003, on the Statute for a European Cooperative Society (SCE), is used as a tool for the structured analysis of various aspects of agricultural cooperatives. However, a comparison is only meaningful if the results are made comparable on the basis of a previously defined standard. Accordingly, the study uses, on one hand, a cooperative model developed by European legal scholars that defines general guidelines on how cooperatives should function (PECOL). On the other, the results are presented in connection with economic considerations to discuss how efficient rules can be developed.

The Oxford Handbook of Mutual, Co-operative, and Co-owned Business
The Oxford Handbook of Mutual, Co-operative, and Co-owned Business

Author: Jonathan Michie

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 705

ISBN-13: 0199684979

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This Handbook investigates all types of 'member owned' organizations, whether consumer co-operatives, agricultural and producer co-operatives, or worker co-operatives among many others. The chapters reflect the latest academic research and thinking on each topic, as well as reporting the relevant policy debates.

The Cooperative Business Movement, 1950 to the Present
The Cooperative Business Movement, 1950 to the Present

Author: Patrizia Battilani

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2012-08-27

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1139561278

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The United Nations declared 2012 the year of cooperatives, emphasizing that there is an alternative to privately owned firms. While greed and mismanagement have caused world financial and economic crises, co-ops offer another type of business for economic activities that is less exposed to aggressive capitalism. This book provides a problem-oriented overview of the development of cooperatives over the last fifty years. The global study addresses the major challenges cooperatives face, such as the organizational innovations introduced to acquire necessary risk-capital and implement growth-related strategies, the wave of demutualization in developed nations and their ability to construct an original consumer politics. The contributors to this volume discuss the successes and failures of the cooperatives and ask whether they are an outdated model of enterprise. They document a wave of foundations of new co-ops, new forms of collaboration between them and a growing trend toward globalization.

Collectivization of Agriculture in Eastern Europe
Collectivization of Agriculture in Eastern Europe

Author: Irwin T. Sanders

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2021-10-21

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 0813186498

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Collectivization of agriculture is an essential feature of the Communist program for the satellite countries of Eastern Europe. It is a means of extending state control of agriculture as well as the basis for developing large-scale industrial and military power. Irwin T. Sanders has edited this excellent group of papers by specialists on Eastern Europe and American rural social scientists, which collectively serve as an analysis of efforts to regiment the East European peasant. To those for whom the terms "collective farm" and "collectivization" have little meaning, this book will provide an actual picture of Communist effort to organize millions of peasants into a standard pattern of production and control. Such regimentation, these writers show, has led to less efficient agriculture from the standpoint of total production although it facilitates the delivery of produce to state economic enterprises.

The Cooperative Society
The Cooperative Society

Author: E. G. Nadeau

Publisher:

Published: 2016-09-01

Total Pages: 48

ISBN-13: 9780998066202

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In this book, we present a hypothesis that humans may be on the threshold of a new historical stage, one characterized by cooperation, democracy, the equitable distribution of resources, and a sustainable relationship with nature. We can act strategically on a range of activities to become a more cooperative society.