Four kinds of cooperatives that have "deteriorated"

In recent years, farmers' cooperatives have developed rapidly. by the end of February this year, the number of farmers' specialized cooperatives registered with the industry and commerce sector had reached 1.3374 million, an increase of 28.74 percent over the same period last year. In the past five years, there has been an average increase of 300000 a year, but there are many phenomena such as "fake cooperatives" and "flipping cooperatives". The "ideal type" of cooperatives is the identity of members' roles, the homogeneity of membership and the coupling of governance structure. However, in practice, due to the relaxation, resolution and drift of members' homogeneity and identity in varying degrees, some realistic types of cooperatives deviate from the "ideal type".

Four "metamorphic" cooperatives

(1) dormant cooperatives

Some farmers' professional cooperatives are born in response to preferential policies. when they find that it is less likely to win policy support, they gradually go into a state of "dormancy" and are not cancelled by the industrial and commercial departments. For example, a cooperative in Shandong Province was registered in July 2009, and the motive for its establishment was that when the chairman of the cooperative saw that some cooperatives in other villages had obtained financial support for the project, he imitated the practice of others to register a cooperative with the department for industry and commerce. I hope I can also get a government financial subsidy. The cooperative has a total of five members and the office is located at the home of the director. During the investigation, the author found that its business license was placed in the corner and did not see the articles of association, organization chart, etc.; after the establishment of the cooperative, it did not carry out any business, nor did it hold any member meetings, boards, etc.; members do not know the specific name of the cooperative, nor do they know that they are members of the cooperative. Such a co-operative is just an "empty shell", "only setting up the stage and not singing operas".

(2) listed co-operatives

In order to obtain state financial support funds or to enjoy relevant preferential policies, some agricultural enterprises use some farmers' relevant certificates to register farmers' professional cooperatives in the department of industry and commerce on the basis of the enterprises. use the cooperative brand to declare agriculture-related projects and operate and manage in an enterprise-like way. For example, the chairman of a cooperative in Sichuan is the owner of an enterprise who has invested a large amount of capital to contract 10,000 mu of mountain to plant cherries and walnuts. In order to get more project support, he has registered a cooperative with the certificates of more than 100 local farmers and used the brand of the cooperative to fight for government projects. For example, a cooperative in Beijing was originally an enterprise and was registered to sign a supply agreement with the retailer Carrefour so that Carrefour can enjoy the VAT credit.

(3) Association-type cooperatives

After the promulgation and implementation of the Farmers' Professional Cooperatives Law, some farmers' professional associations are registered as farmers' professional cooperatives. Although they have put up the sign of cooperatives, they are still operating in the way of associations. This type of cooperative does not require the contribution of its members, the boundary of the members is vague, and the cooperative surplus is not distributed among the members.

(4) Minority-controlled cooperatives

Some cooperatives have established relevant systems, but only a small number of members have control of the cooperatives, and most of the members only exist as users and do not participate in the governance of the cooperatives. For example, the chairman of a cooperative in Zhejiang is a citrus broker, working with more than 10 large-scale local farmers to establish an orange cooperative. The shares of the cooperative are mainly concentrated in the hands of the members of the board of directors and the board of supervisors, and only these members participate in the members' Congress.

Why does it "deteriorate"?

(1) the specific environment of "industrialization before organization" determines the special governance structure of cooperatives.

Different from the development of cooperatives in developed countries and regions, the development of cooperatives in China lags behind agricultural industrialization. The reform of the rural economic system at the beginning of reform and opening up established the household contract economy on the basis of collective land ownership. Farmers have complete control over the labor force in the family, complete management of land and complete control over most of the production results, and agricultural labor productivity has been improved. However, due to the weakening of village-level collective economic function, the effect of unified service for family management is not obvious. with the deepening of agricultural commercialization, the contradiction between small farmers and large market is becoming more and more prominent.

Under such circumstances, guided by the market and driven by effective carriers such as leading enterprises, the rapid development of agricultural industrialization that organizes and guides small farmers to jointly enter the big market has become another great pioneering work after the household contract responsibility system and the "sudden rise" of township enterprises. "supporting leading enterprises means supporting agriculture" has become a consensus in theoretical and policy circles. In 2004, the first document of the Central Committee proposed that "finance at all levels should arrange special funds to support the development of agricultural industrialization." greatly increase investment in leading enterprises.

However, it is difficult to establish a close interest linkage mechanism between leading enterprises and farmers. In this context, the development of farmers' cooperative economic organizations is regarded as a link between farmers and the market. The natural characteristics of agriculture and the dispersion of farmers determine that cooperatives will play a greater role in the process of agricultural industrialization. However, the development of cooperatives can not be separated from the current industrial background, that is, agricultural enterprises represented by industrial and commercial capital have gone deep into rural areas and occupy an important position, so they can not talk about the development of cooperatives from the very beginning. The profit-seeking nature of capital naturally determines that it hopes to carry out business activities through economic organizations owned by investors. therefore, many cooperatives, whether led by capital owners or set up spontaneously by farmers, have the shadow of capital in them. that is, in the early stage of the establishment of cooperatives, there appeared the phenomenon that ordinary farmers rely on leading enterprises or large planting, transportation and marketing households to set up "dependent" cooperatives.

(2) the heterogeneity of members will inevitably lead to the control of cooperatives by members with strong bargaining power.

The Farmers' Professional Cooperatives Law stipulates that the members of cooperatives can be related interest groups with upstream and downstream business in the same agricultural industry chain, which affirms the fact that heterogeneous members form cooperatives. The essence of the cooperative formed by different factor owners is to form and obtain the organizational rent, and the game within the cooperative always revolves around the division of the organizational rent, and the result of the game determines its internal governance structure.

If the members are relatively homogeneous small farmers, then the cooperative's decision-making is more likely to be carried out in a relatively democratic atmosphere. When the heterogeneity of cooperative members increases, rent distribution is more inclined to be distributed by the party with power, and unless the party with power has the dedication to continue the democratic mechanism of the cooperative, otherwise, democracy is bound to be replaced by a mechanism in which the individual has the final say. Compared with scattered small farmers, capital or professional large households can get a larger share of rent distribution. Therefore, the governance structure of cooperatives initiated by heterogeneous members must reflect the bargaining position of owners of different elements, under the condition that the weak position of scattered farmers has not changed, it is inevitable that the governance structure of cooperatives is controlled by a small number of people, especially capital control.