Obstacles to Co-operation: some empirical experiences from Hungarian Agriculture

TOPIC 4-STAGE 2-MESO The general aim of the research is to examine the economic, sociological and psychological prerequisites and constrains in the agri-food economy in Hungary including the role of trust in co-operation. The... [ view full abstract ]

TOPIC 4-STAGE 2-MESO
The general aim of the research is to examine the economic, sociological and psychological prerequisites and constrains in the agri-food economy in Hungary including the role of trust in co-operation. The main aim of present paper is to clarify why agricultural producers (and other actors) in the (Hungarian) agri-food economy are averse from collaboration even if they know that co-operation would pay off economically? Or does co-operation really pay off?
We present results of a survey among Hungarian agricultural producers on their co-operation activity. In collaboration with Hungarian Chamber of Agriculture we gained information from 7728 of its members (agricultural producers) through an on-line based empirical survey in Summer 2015. After data clearing we got 6573 farms in our sample. According to the findings of the above empirical research more than 51% of the respondents do not cooperate at all in any forms of cooperation. The biggest obstacle to co-operation is in the attitude of the farmers: they do no like to depend on anybody else and/or they do not like to commit themselves. Huge lack of information is also a big barrier: farmers do not know their possibilities and have not got enough information on the different forms of cooperation. Producers also choose “the lack of cooperation nearby I could join to” reason and some of them referred bad experiences in the past as a main problem. Most of the producers who do co-operate at all choose formal co-operation more likely and by far the most popular forms are producer owned organisations (like fruit and vegetable Producer Organisations) among them. A lot of producers take up opportunities offered by informal co-operation, the most popular forms being of lending to each others technical resources (e.g. machines), joint selling, machinery/physical work based on reciprocity as well as machinery services for money. Examination of issues regarding co-operation on regional level shows different picture from the national experiences reported above.
We conclude that EU and/or governmental supports can not solve all of the problems of agricultural co-operation in Hungary; policy actions are needed in order to demolish mental barriers (e.g. by education) and in order to distribute more information on the different ways and models of collaboration among producers and consumers. Although there are some recent developments going on, solving the problems of the black market and short-term financing of producer owned organisations are still important issues as well.