FARMERS‘ PARTICIPATION IN COOPERATIVE ACTIVITIES

FARMERS’ PARTICIPATION IN COOPERATIVE ACTIVITIES

b RUTH GASSON

Department of Land Economy, CamMge LJ&wJ+~J

Rural sociologists investigating the success or failure of agricultural cooperatives adopt one of two approaches. Either they treat the cooperative organisation or movement as the proper unit of study or they focus on the attributes and actions of cooperative members. Al- though it would seem logical to combine the two approaches, this is rarely done. The former approach, closer perhaps to the traditions of sociology or cultural anthropology, is exemplified in the collection of papers, “TWO Blades of Grass” (Worsley, 1971). The present paper would be included in the second category, among studies more akin to social psychology, which owe much to the early work of Beal(1914). In this tradition, success or failure of a cooperative is attributed to the degree to which members participate. It is inferred that more partici- pation would mean greater success for the cooperative. The objective is therefore to identlfy characteristics of members associated with low participation and to change them. Any failure due to the way the cooperative is organised and conducts its business would not be taken into account in such a study. Often a sample will be drawn from the membership of a single cooperative, so that attributes of the organisa- tion itself can be ignored.

Participation, a form of behaviour, is usually treated as the depen- dent variable in studies of this type, to be explained in terms of charac- teristics of the member. These characteristics are typically divided into objective, background factors (economic, social, psychological charac- teristics) and subjective, attitudinal variables (also beliefs, values and perceptions relating to cooperation). Beal(19j6) termed these respec- tively “dynamic” and “static” factors while Yacoub and Haddad (1970) following Reeder (1963 and 1967) spoke of “reference category charac- teristics” and “beliefs and disbeliefs.” From the point of view of an

I 08 Rgtb Garon

agency interested in increasing participation levels, t h i s division is a practical one since attitudes may be open to change but background characteristics almost certainly will not.

Participation has been defined and measured in a variety of ways in studies of agricultural cooperation, ranging from simple counts of membership to measures of patronage, financial support and involve- ment in the running of the organisation. Le Vay (1971) for example, measured participation in terms of use of cooperative services and changes in use from one year to the next. Foxall and McConnell-Wood (1976) included both trading with the cooperative society and mem- bers’ views on the obligations of membership under the heading of “participation.” Yacoub and Haddad (1970) combined measures of patronage, office holding, attending meetings, talking favourably about the cooperative and trying to recruit new members. Brown and Bealer (1957) similarly included five arcas of behaviour in a partici- pation score, namely patronage, attendance at meetings, frequency of talking about the cooperative, frequency of trying to recruit new members and frequency of “shopping around” before dealing through the cooperative. Beal(19j4) defined the functions of membership as controlling the organisation, financing, bearing risks, sharing costs, obtaining facts and understanding, maintaining the organisation, patrodsing and sharing the economic benefits. He developed a parti- cipation score by summing scores on individual items within these eight functions of membership.

There are objections to treating participation as a single variable when it combines such diverse kinds of behaviour as office holding, talking to friends and neighbours and trading through the organisa- tion. On common sense grounds, a distinction can be made between membership of a cooperative, patronage or use of cooperative services and involvement in the running of the cooperative or support for the organisation. It is suggested that these various functions of coopera- tive membership imply quite Merent kinds of behaviour and that there will not necessarily be any strong association between them. If this is found to be the case, then any set of background characteristics or attitudes which predicts one form of participation will not neces- sarily predict other forms equally well.

C O O P E R A T I V E S IN T H E S U R V E Y

Samples were drawn from the membership of two crop marketing cooperatives in eastern England, one dealing with potatoes, the other

Farmers' Participatiofl in Cooperafive ActivitieJ 109

with a range of vegetable crops. The organisations were chosen for their similarity rather than for contrast. Both were founded in the early 1960s and both had just over one hundred members by the early 1970s. Both organisations were regarded as among the most successful of their kind in Britain and in each case much of the credit was attri- buted to an outstandingly good manager who had been with the cooperative from the beginning.

To join one of these cooperatives a farmer has to purchase a mini- mum number of shares and contract to send a specified area of crops to the cooperative each year, paying a certain sum for every hectare contracted. Members are expected to honour their contracts and send the specified amount of produce through the cooperative but they have latitude in deciding how much to contract and when to send it. Contracts are rarely enforced but sanctions can be applied against members who abuse or fail to use the cooperative, by expelling them from membership publicly.

The cooperatives offer a range of marketing services to members. They collect, grade, prepack and store produce. They guarantee to find a market for all the produce contracted to them and will also, if possible, market members' crops which have not been contracted. They are able to negotiate contracts with retail chains and supermar- kets which give the grower more favourable terms than he could arrange for himself. They provide a market intelligence service to members. The vegetable marketing cooperative supplies packing materials to members at cost price while the other supplies seed pota- toes. Finally, afterproviding these services and setting aside a neces- sary sum for development, the cooperatives distribute any surplus on trading as a bonus to members, in proportion to the amount of business they have put through the cooperative.

Managing directors and chairmen of the cooperatives were ap- proached before the survey was started. Both managers provided background information about the history of theit organisation, its objectives, development and day-to-day operation and gave access to a list of members. All 108 members of the vegetable cooperative were approached and 89 interviews were completed. Most of the members who did not cooperate in the survey, could not or would not commit themselves to fixing a time for an interview, owing to the very difficult weather conditions of late 1974. Fieldwork was finally abandoned at the end of 1974 but it was felt that the sample interviewed was re- presentative of the membership as a whole. Fieldwork in the potato cooperative ran into greater difficulties with the bad weather in the

I I 0 Ruth Gasson

winter of 197415 and only 20 out of a target of 40 members of the organisation were finally interviewed. This sample may have been biased towards more interested or committed members. Partly for this reason, no attempt was made to combine the results of the two samples.

A questionnaire which had been piloted among members of one organisation was used, with minor modifications, for both samples. Some questions were factual, some structured and some open ended. Interviews normally lasted between 30 and 40 minutes.

M E A S U R I N G P A R T I C I P A T I O N

Four kinds of participation considered in the study were patronage or use of cooperative services, support for the cooperative as an organisa- tion, membership of other cooperative organisations and participation in informal cooperative activities.

Use of cooperative services was defined as the area of vegetable crops or potatoes a member sold through the organisation in 1974 as a percentage of the total area of eligible crops grown by the member in that year. Farmers were asked what area of those crops they were growing in 1974 and how much they expected to sell through the cooperative. It was recognised that the final amount sent might prove to be greater or less than originally intended, depending on vagaries of the market as the season progressed. In fact, the aggregate area suggested by members of each sample accorded well with the through- put of the previous year and there was no obvious reason why replies should have been biased one way or the other.

The 86 members of the vegetable cooperative sample were growing some 2 900 ha. of eligible crops (vegetables, potatoes and glasshouse crops) in 1974, of which 800 ha. were reported to be destined for the cooperative, giving an overall use value of 2 9 per cent. The 20 mem- bers of the potato cooperative sample were growing 370 ha. of pota- toes between them and intended to send 320 ha. to the cooperative, so that use was 87 per cent overall. A larger proportion of potato growers than vegetable growers relied entirely on the cooperative for marketing, but in both samples use ranged from IOO per cent, for those marketing exclusively through the cooperative, to o per cent for those members not growing eligible crops in that year or for some reason not expecting to sell any through the organisation.

Support for the organisation was measured by scoring answers to a series of questions concerned with maintenance of the organisation as such rather than with patronage. Scores were simply added to give a

Farmers’ Par ticipation in Cooprative Activities I 1 1

total support score for each member. Maximum possible score for members of the vegetable cooperative was 20, achieved by a few mem- bers, while the mean score was I I . The potato cooperative had fewer functions and here the maximum score was I I , the mean score 9.

Memberdip has been treated in some studies as a continuous vari- able, to cover past membership as well as present or even the strength of attitude towards future membership. In the present study member- ship was treated as a dichotomous variable (member or non-member). Since all farmers interviewed were members of the cooperative in question, membership could be regarded as a parameter. Members of one cooperative might, however, be active in other similar organisa- tions. Farmers were therefore asked how many other agricultural cooperatives with a formal constitution they belonged to. On average each member of the vegetable cooperative belonged to 1.1 other for- mal cooperatives while members of the potato cooperative averaged 2.7 other memberships. In both samples the maximum number of other memberships was six while some members belonged to none but the organisation under investigation.

Members who belong to one coopera- tive might participate in other forms of cooperative activity. Farmers in the sample were asked whether they cooperated on an informal basis with other farmers. Since farms were predominantly arable, the question was phrased in terms of lending, borrowing or sharing machinery. Both samples showed a fairly even distribution between those who cooperated regularly with others, those cooperating occa- sionally as the need arose and those who never did so. A few farmers had combined to purchase and operate machines for picking Brussels sprouts but usually cooperation was confined to lending and borrow- ing machines.

Informal cooperative attivig.

RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN MEASURES O F PARTICIPATION

If all measures of partidpation are referring to the same phenomenon, we should expect to find close correspondence between them. “Good” participators should be strong supporters of cooperative organisa- tions, members of a large number of such organisations, make best use of cooperative services available to them and cooperate readily with their neighbours on an informal basis. In the two organisations studied there was evidence of some positive associations but agree- ment between the variables was far from complete. While high sup- porters of the organisations tended to make better use of cooperative

11.2 Ruth Gasson

services than low supporters and high users tended to give greater support than low users, this was not universally true. For members of the vegetable cooperative, the correlation between use and support was significant beyond the I per cent level of probability (r = p.3 j) but in the potato cooperative with a smaller sample, the correlation coefficient fr = 0 .28 ) did not reach significance at the j per cent level, as Table I shows.

TMLB I . Cowelatiom between measmi of par:ici)ariOn

UX Support Membership

a) Vegetable cooperative Use

Membership Informal cooperation

b) Potato cooperative Use

Membership Informal cooperation

Support

SUPPOrt

- 0.3l -0.03 0.14

0.12 0.04

- 0.28 - 0.04 0.40

-0.05 0.22 -

- 0.31

- -0.11

(Values of r rmdrrrincd are significant at or beyond the 5 per cent levd of probability).

If farmers’ propensity to cooperate is a characteristic which goes deeper than their dealings with a single organisation, we should expect to find a positive association between participation in one cooperative and membership of others. Strong supporters and users of one would be expected to belong to more cooperative organisations than weak supporters and users. There was evidence of a positive association between membership and support for the potato cooperative (r = 0.40) but this was not suong for the vegetable cooperative (r = 0.14). Membership of other organisations was weakly but negatively corre- lated with use of the vegetable cooperative, suggesting that those using the cooperative more might belong to fewer other organisations. None of the correlations of membership with other measures of participation was significant.

Similarly, if cooperative participation is a unidimensional variable, we should expect to find a positive association between use and sup- port for one organisation and participation in informal cooperative activities. Brown (1954) reported a positive relationship between formal and informal participation of individuals in three rural com-

Farmers’ Participation in Cooperative Activities 113

munities in Pennsylvannia but Beal(19j4) found no signrficant asso- ciation between participation in formal cooperatives and informal cooperative ventures among Iowa farmers. In the present survey, the only significant positive association was with membership of other organisations ; members of the vegetable cooperative who cooperated regularly on an informal basis belonged to significantly more coopera- tives than those who did not. In the other sample, no strong positive association was found between informal cooperative activity and any other aspect of participation.

In short, although a few significant relationships were found, associations between cooperative membership, informal cooperation, use and support were generally weak. It is therefore suggested that “participation” in cooperative activities cannot be regarded as a single variable combining elements of membership, patronage and support but that each element should be regarded as a variable in its own right.

Precisely the same kind of criticism could be levelled against the measure of “support” used in the survey. This variable was measured by a sum of scores for various activities thought to contribute to organisation maintenance such as holding office, attending meetings, talking to other farmers about the cooperative, trying to recruit new members, knowing the directors and joining at the first opportunity or later. It could be argued again that each activity represents a differ- ent kind of behaviour not necessarily related to some underlying notion of “support.” The analysis was therefore repeated using “hold- ing office” as a measure of support for the organisation. Sixteen members of the vegetable cooperative and eight of the potato coopera- tive sample were or had been directors or committee members. By definition, office holding was strongly correlated with support, since “being a director” was one of the items included in the support score. Moreover, office holding was nearly always associated with being a founder member, attending meetings regularly, trying to recruit new members and knowing all the other directors.

TABLE z. Corrclationr betlvem oflce bolding and measurer of pmficijktion

ofhce holding in office holding in vegetable cooperative potato cooperative

USe 0.06 0.25

Support 0.63 0.91 Membership 0.12 0.29 Informal cooperation -0.26 -0.29

114 Ruth Gasson

OAice holding did not prove to be significantly associated with either use of cooperative services or membership of other organisations, in either sample, as Table 2 shows. More interesting was the discovery that for both organisations, holding office was negafively correlated with cooperating on an informal basis. In the vegetable cooperative this correlation was significant at the j per cent level. In other words, farmers who were strong supporters of the organisation in question, serving on the board of directors, were less likely than ordinary members to cooperate informally with others. This suggests again that “participation” is far from being a simple unidimensional variable.

FARM SIZE AND PARTICIPATION

It is reasonable to expect participation in a cooperative to be affected by certain background characteristics of the farmer. Size of farm is an obvious variable to test, since it is naturally linked with other status variables such as level of income, education and work role (Gasson, 1974). A survey in Great Britain in 1963 showed that farmers with large acreages were more likely than those with smaller farms to be members of cooperatives and buying groups (Nielsen Farmers’ Panel, 1963). Beal found no evidence of a relationship between size of farm and participation in his own or other studies of agricultural coopera- tion. He found a significant association between sou0 economic status and participation, however, t h i s being one of the few background factors correlated with participation. He referred to many other studies which showed higher status individuals participating more than those of low status in formal organisations (Beal, 1954, p. 61). In the present context it was expected that farmers with larger farms,

and by inference larger businesses and thus higher socio economic status, would give greater support to the cooperative organisation. Conventional wisdom suggests that small farmers cooperate more among themselves on an informal basis, but there were no grounds for expecting either larger or smaller farmers to make greater use of cooperative services.

The three measures of size were total farm area, area of potatoes or vegetable crops and proportion of the total area under vegetables or potatoes. Members of the potato cooperative sample were fairly uni- form in these respects. Typically they farmed between 100 and 300 hectares, employing five or six men, with potatoes accounting for between 5 per cent and x j per cent of the total area. Consequently measures of size did not explain much of the variation in participation

Farmers’ Participation in Cooperative Activities I I j

in this sample. As Table 3 shows, none of the correlations between measures of size and participation in the potato cooperative sample was significant beyond the 5 per cent level.

Members of the vegetable cooperative sample were drawn from a greater variety of farm sizes and types. At one extreme were nursery- men and glasshouse specialists producing exclusively glasshouse crops or flowers from a few hectares. At the other extreme were “farmer growers” with large arable farms who had recently begun to grow potatoes or vegetable crops on a field scale as a break in the cereal rotation. Typically their farms exceeded zoo ha. with less than a third of the land under vegetables. Between the two extremes were more traditional market gardeners with holdings of between zo and j o ha., producing mainly vegetables but growing cereals on idle land. Vege- table crops would normally account for more than a third but less than the total area of the holding. Farmer growers would employ a number of permanent workers while market gardeners relied mainly on family labour.. On most measures of status, market gardeners would come below farmer growers while the position of nurserymen was somewhat equivocal.

TABLE 3. Correlations between measwe$ ofjm size andpar:ic@a:ion

Farm size Area of Proportion of vegetables total area in or potatoes V e g l P t S .

~

a) Vegetable cooperative USC SUPPOfl Membership Informal cooperation

-0.08 -0.24 -0.17

0.22 0.22 -0.21

0.49 0.09 -0.41 -0.02 -0.19 - 0 . 2 j

b) Potato cooperative USC -0.04 SUPPOfl -0.03 Membership 0.07

0.1 I

0.10

0.17

0.10

0.21

0 . 3 1 Informal &operation -0.14 0.29 0.16

As expected, support for the vegetable cooperative was positively associated with farm size and area of vegetable crops and negatively associated with the proportion of land devoted to vegetable crops. All three correlations were close to significance at the 5 per cent level. This means that the farmer with the larger business, the farmer grower rather than the smaller market gardener or glasshouse specialist, is

I 16 Ruth Gas~on

likely to give greater support to the cooperative as an organisation. Several explanations can be put forward. One possibility is that to

support a cooperative organisation is demanding of time and only farmers with larger businesses, those who employ a permanent labour force and a foreman, can spare the time to leave the farm and attend committee meetings, visit the coopuative headquarters and so on. Another explanation is that farmers with larger bukinesses are more experienced in business matters, more aware of the need to keep well informed about the conduct of a business in which they have a finan- cial interest and are more likely to believe they can exercise some con- trol over events. Hence they would be likely to score high on ccsupport~~ for the cooperative. Small business farmers, often lesq familiar with the procedure and language of business meetings, may feel powerless to influence decisions and so be unwilling to take an active part in the running of the cooperative. A third possibility is that when the cooper- ative is first established, it is desirable to invite farmers of high stand- ing in the local community to become directors, in order to improve the image of the organisation and therefore high status farmers will be likely to score higher on support. Further, farmers with large busi- nesses will be approached in the first instance and invited to give the cooperative their fjnancial backing. These explanations are not neces- sarily incompatible with one another.

Table 3 also shows that membersh@ of other cooperatives was strongly associated with size of farm and proportion of the farm under vegetable crops. The larger the farm business and the less specialised it is, the more likely that the farmer will belong to several cooperative organisations. The explanation may be simply that the larger the volume of business and the greater its diversity, the more likely it is that at least some of that business will be transacted with cooperatives. It seems possible, though, that the arguments for higher status farmers giving more support to one cooperative would also apply to their membership of other organisations. That is to say, farmers with larger businesses have more time to devote to other organisations, their membership is sought to give prestige to other organisations and they themselves may wish to exercise control over the way these organisa- tions are run.

Use of the vegetable cooperative showed no significant association with size of farm but it was negatively correlated with area of vege- table crops. Growers with s m a l l acreages tend to be weak buyers and sellers and for this reason it is logical to find them making greater use of cooperative strength than those members with large acreages. Use

Farmers’ Participation in Cooperative Activities “7

of the cooperative was also negatively correlated with proportion of the farm under vegetable crops, suggesting that the non-specialist grower makes greater use of cooperative services than the specialist. It is also noted that farmsize and area of vegetable crops are positively correlated with support but negatively correlated with use of the cooperative. As suggested earlier, factors which predict one type of participation do not predict other forms equally well.

Table 3 shows a negative correlation between area of vegetable crops and propensity to cooperate with others on an informal basis, as anticipated, although the negative correlation between farm size and informal cooperation was very weak. The negative correlation between specialisation and informal cooperation suggests that growers with a greater variety of farm enterprises have more opportunities for exchanging machinery.

When Beal investigated the relationships between cooperative participation and a large number of social and economic characteristics of farmers, he found signrficant relationships only for socio economic status and general social participation. It is claimed that the present study is moving towards a better prediction of cooperative behaviour, by making a distinction between various components of participation. Since the various elements of participation have been shown in the present study not to be synonymous, they will not necessarily vary in the same direction. It appears from this study, too, that measures of farm size, closely related to status, are better predictors of cooperative support and membership than use. Higher status farmers would seem to be better supporters of cooperative organisations and to belong to more of them than farmers with smal l businesses and lower status. There is weak evidence that farmers with smaller businesses are better users of cooperative services and more indined to cooperate among themselves on an informal basis.

ATTITUDES TO COOPERATIVE AND P A R T I C I P A T I O N

While Beal found few relationships between participation and back- ground characteristics of members or what he termed “static” factors, he found participation to be strongly associated with members’ atti- tudes, perceptions and beliefs about cooperation. In every case, mem- bers with greater understanding of the a i m s of the organisation and with a more favourable attitude towards it, participated more. Brown and Bealer (1957) found that members whose value orientations were most in agreement with the goals of the cooperative were the most

I 18 Ruth Garson

dective members in terms of participation and perception of respon- sibility. Copp (1964) who was investigating members’ loyalty rather than participation, similarly found no significant association between loyalty to a cooperative and any demographic characteristic of the farm operator. He discovered, however, that the way members inter- preted their knowledge, rewards and experience in the cooperative was more closely related to loyalty than the actual extent of their knowledge, rewards or participation in the organisation. Yacoub and Haddad (1970) found none of the reference category variables was significantly related to participation in the cooperative while cognitive variables (beliefs, expectations, attitudes and opinions about coopera- tion) were powerful predictors. Similarly le Vay (1971) reported significant relationships between participation and a number of atti- tudinal and perceptual variables such as satisfaction with the services provided by the cooperative, expressed commitment to the group and attitudes towards agricultural cooperation in general. All these studies suggest that the way members approach cooperation, their beliefs about cooperation in general or a particular cooperative organisation, will be likely to iduence participation to a greater extent than back- ground characteristics. This section therefore examines the effect of certain attitude variables on the Werent components of participation.

Previous studies have shown satisfaction with the cooperative to be strongly associated with participation. In the present study, satisfaction with the organisation was measured by asking members how satisfied they felt with prices received, convenience of dealing through the cooperative, treatment received from staff and the efficiency of the cooperative in looking after members’ interests. Replies were convert- ed to a “satisfaction score” for each member with a maximum of 8 (very satisfied with all four aspects) to a minimum of -8. Mean scores were 3.7 for the vegetable cooperative sample and 6.1 for the potato cooperative. A second measure was whether the member’s opinion of cooperation had improved, worsened or remained unchanged since joining the organisation. Here 24 per cent of members of the vegetable cooperative sample and I j per cent of the potato cooperative said their opinion had improved. Members of the vegetable cooperative were also asked to compare the organisation with other outlets they used for marketing vegetables in respect of prices, convenience, reliability, promptness of payment and principle. They judged the cooFerative to be better in 23 per cent of all comparisons. This measure of satisfaction was not applicable to most members of the potato cooperative sample since they used no other outlet for potatoes.

Farmers’ Participation in Cooperative Acthities 119

TABLE 4. Cowekatwm b8twcm zatirj2cth m*tb th mpratim a d partirtpth

Satisfaction Whether opinion Proportion of score had improd favourable

comparisons

a) Vegetablecooperative USe

Membership SUPPOfi

Mormal coopt ion

0.47 0.27

-0.11 -0.10

0.49 0.37 0.22 -0.07 0.00 0.05

0.00 0.12

b) Potato cooperative USe 0.4l 0.23 SUPpofi 0.3 z 0.26

Informal cooperation 0.07 0.14 Membership -0.15 -0.09

In both organisations, satisfaction was strongly correlated with use of the organisation and less strongly with support. No significant rela- tionships were found between satisfaction with the cooperative and membership of other organisations or informal cooperative activity. (Table 4). The correlations between use of the cooperative and mea- sures of satisfaction were some of the strongest found in t h i s analysis. Over half the high users of the vegetable cooperative but very few of the low users, for example, said they felt more favourably towards rooperation than when they had first joined. Similarly 1 5 per cent of high users of the potato cooperative but none of the low users said their opinion of cooperative marketing had improved since joining.

Evidence that satisfaction and use of the cooperative are associated does not, of course, explain the direction of causality. A member might use the cooperative more because it has proved satisfactory in the past but equally he might find that the more he uses it, the more satisfied he becomes.

As other researchers have noted, participation is more closely related to members’ attitudes than to their background characteristics. In the analysis for this study, zz per cent of all correlations between participation and variables representing attitudes or beliefs about cooperation were found to be significant beyond the 5 per cent level but only 1 5 per cent of all correlations between participation and background variables were significant.

I20 Ruth Gasson

CONCLUSIONS

This study suggests that “participation in cooperative activities” is not a simple variable but complex, embracing several quite distinct kinds of behaviour. Rather than trying to relate characteristics and attitudes of members to “participation” measured as some combination of these various activities, the study identified four components of participation, namely use or patronage, support, membership and informal cooperation. Correlations between these variables were not strong nor necessarily even positive. It is therefore suggested that future studies should not treat cooperative participation as a unidimen- sional variable but should study its components of membership, support and patronage and their correlates, separately.

Previous research has predicted but found little evidence of rela- tionships between cooperative participation and background charac- teristics of members. This might be because the various components of participation relate to these background variables in Merent ways. In the study, size of farm was chosen as a key background variable. It was found to be more strongly associated with support and mem- bership than with use of cooperative services or informal cooperation. Although the evidence was not powerful, there was a suggestion that farmers with larger businesses were higher on support and member- ship but lower on use and informal cooperation than farmers with small businesses.

Conversely, this study showed that attitude variables such as satis- faction with the cooperative tended to be strongly associated with use of the organisation, only weakly associated with support and quite unrelated to membership of other organisations or propensity to cooperate informally. On present evidence there was no way of decid- ing whether high satisfaction would lead to greater participation or vice versa.

These findings have implications for the development of a coopera- tive. The founder members of the organisations studied, those who had initiated their establishment or who had been invited to join the board of directors at the beginning, were mainly leaders in the farming community, high in status, with larger than average farms. These members, who scored highest on support of the cooperative, believed in cooperative marketing from the start. They knew how to set about founding the cooperative, raising the necessary capital and persuading others to join. Farmers who scored highest on patronage were not necessarily the same individuals. Typically they operated smaller

Farmers’ Participation in Cooperative Activities I21

businesses and were lower in status than the high supporters. Some had joined at the first opportunity but others, perhaps less conversant with the theoretical arguments in favour of cooperation or less con- vinced by them, waited for results. Joining a few years later, when they had been persuaded that cooperative marketing offered them tangible advantages, some had become very loyal members, making M e s t use of cooperative services and expressing satisfaction with the way the organisation was run. It is tentatively suggested that to be success- ful, an agricultural cooperative needs to rely on the support, good will and financial backing of its supporters in the early years but that once established, it becomes increasingly important to have members who are reliable wers of the services provided. This paper would suggest that the two groups of members may not be identical.

NOTES

1 Based on a paper presented at the Fourth World Congress of Rural Sociology. Torun, Poland, August 1976.

The author is grateful to the Central Council for Agricultural and Horticultural Cooper- ation for their support for the research project on which this paper is based.

REFERENCES

BEAL, G. M. (1954), The Roots of Participation in Farmer Cooperatives, ( h e s , Iowa:

BEAL, G. M. (r956), Additional Hypotheses in Participation Research, Rural Sociology,

BROWN, E. J. (1914). Informal Participation of Active and Inactive Formal Participants, Rural Sociology, 19 (4). 365-370.

BROWN, E. J. and R. C. BEALER (1957), Value Orientations and Behavioural Correlates of Members in Purchasing Cooperatives, Rural Sociology, z z (I), 50-58.

C~PP, J .H. (1964). Perceptual Influences on Loyalty in a Fvma Cooperative, Rural Sociology, 29 (z), 168-180.

FOXALL, G. R. and M. M. MC~NNELL-WOOD (1976). Member-Society Relations in Agricultural Cooperation, (Newcastle: University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Department of Agricultural Marketing).

GASSON, R. M. (1974), Socio Economic Status and Orientation to Work: The Case of F m c r s , Sociologia Ruralis, 14 (3). 127-141.

LE VAY, C. (1975), Cooperative Theory and Farmers’ Attitudes - A Prelirmnvy Study, (Abcrystwyth: University College of Wales, Department of Agricultural Economics).

NIELSEN FARMERS’ PANU (1963), A Nielsen Farmers’ Panel Study of Cooperatives and Buying Groups, (Oxford: Special Research Division, Farm Focus No. I).

REEDER, W. W. (1963), DirMive Factors in Social Action: A Multiple Factor Theory of Social Action, Community Development Review, 8, 39-53.

College Book Store).

21 (3-4). 249-256-

I22 Ruth Gasson REEKIER, W. W. (1967), A Theory of Daision Making and Social Action, (Ithaca: Corndl

University, Department of Rural Sociology), (Unpublished). WORSLEY P. (cd.) (1971). Two Blades of Grass: R d Cooperatives in Agricultural Me

demisation (Manchcster: Manchesta University Press). YACOUB, S. M. and A. HADDAD (1910). Factors Influencing Farmers’ Participation in a

Lebanese Village Cooperative, (Beirut: American Univctsity of Beirut, Faculty Agricultural Sciences. Publication No. 48).

S U M M A R Y

Previous studies have treated participation in agricultural coopera- tives as a single variable. A better understanding of farmers’ coopera- tive behaviour may be achieved by distinguishing separate compo- nents of participation. This paper identifies four components; use or patronage, support for the cooperative and involvement in the run- ning of the organisation, membership of other cooperatives and cooperating informally with other farmers. A survey of members of two crop marketing cooperatives in England suggests that the four components of participation are not closely associated. Factors which predict one will not therefore predict other forms of participation equally well. Attitude variables tend to predict use of cooperative services best. Measures of farm size, related to socio economic status, are better predictors of support and membership than patronage.

RBSUMB

Dans les ttudes anttrieures, la participation aux cooptratives rurales a ttt traitte comme une variable unique. I1 est possible d’achever une meilleure comprthension du comportement des cultivateurs dans la cooptrative si l’on distingue mtrents tltments de participation. Cet article distingue quatre tltments: usage ou patronage, soutient pour la coophtive et participation au fonctionnement de l’organisation, adhtrence d’autres coopchtives et coophation informelle avec d’autres cultivateurs. Une ttude des membres de deux cooptratives de commercialisation des rtcoltes en Angleterre suggeste que les quatre Cltments de participation ne sont pas dosement associks. Les facteurs qui prtdisent l’un d’entre eux ne prtdisent donc pas aussi bien les autres formes de participation. En gtntral, ce sont les variables d’atti- tude qui prtdisent le mieux l’usage de services cooptratifs. Les mesures de la taille de l‘exploitation, qui est apparentte au statut socio-6cono- mique, permettent de meilleures previsions du soutient et de l’adhk- rence que du patronage.

Farmers’ Participation in Cooperative Activities 123

Z U S A M M E N P A S S U N G

Friihere Studien haben Beteiligung an landwirtschaftlichen Genossen- schaften als cine einzelne Variable behandelt. Das genossenschaftliche Verhalten von Landwirten konnte vielleicht besser verstanden wer- den, wenn separate Komponenten der Teilnahme unterschieden wiir- den. Vorliegender Artikel identifiziert 4 Komponenten: Nutzung der Genossenschaft (Patronage), Unterstiitzung fur die Genossenschaft und Interesse am Leben der Organisation, Mitgliedschaft in anderen Genossenschaften und informelle Kooperation mit anderen Land- wirten. - Eine Untersuchung bei Mitgliedern zweier Vermarktungs- genossenschaften fiir Feldfriichte in England deutet darauf hin, da13 die vier Komponenten der Partizipation nicht eng miteinander asso- ziiert sind. Daher diirften Faktoren, die die eine Komponente voraus- sagen, nicht gleich gut andere Formen der Partizipation voraussagen lassen. Verhaltensvariable scheinen die Benutzung genossenschaft- licher Dienste am besten vorauszusagen. Betriebsgrolk im Verhiiltnis zum sozio-okonomischen Status 13isst besser die Unterstiitzung und Mitgliedschaft voraussagen als Benutzung der Genossenschaft.