This article highlights the interaction between social capital, pooling and quality premiums and their influence on cooperative members’ decisions regarding their product quality. A necessary condition for cooperative equitable principles such as complete pooling is that there exists a high...

Institutional problems and the corruptive use of social capital give ground for misuse of institutional gaps and cause intentional failures for financial benefits. Based on social capital theory and transaction cost economics (TCE) this paper describes how the institutional environment in the...

In the past, much rural development planning has relied on the concept of growth poles. With the “new rural paradigm”, we find that place-specific development and bottom-up approaches have become more popular than ever. Such place-based development often envisages the use of social capital....

Drawing on Nahapiet and Ghoshal's (1998) distinction between the structural, relational, and cognitive dimensions of social capital, this paper analyses the performance of Water Communities (WCs) in the Bregalnica region of the Republic of Macedonia. WCs are farmer-managed local irrigation...

The establishment of Geographical Indications (GI) can be considered like an instrument, that from initiative of public policies of rural development, can have application for the protection of territorial agri-food productions that present tipicity. In the case of being Local Agri-food Systems...

Private farming is the dominant mode of agricultural production in most European countries. Not all farmers are equally successful, economically. In this paper it is analysed whether social capital is an important factor contributing to higher agricultural incomes. Based on the findings of a...

The agricultural sector in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) is confronted by two huge problems simultaneously: transition processes and sustainability. Institutions are very important for both these problems. The purpose of this paper is to make clear that the institutional setting is very...

The decision-making of indigenous Ibaloi and Kankanaey growers in seven highland communities of Benguet, Cordillera region Philippines was captured in three models. The models explain factors affecting their selection of primary transacting partners. The farmers three main primary marketing...

The aim of this paper is to test empirically the role of both cognitive and structural social capital in explaining the repayment performance of individual members under joint liability borrowing in rural Armenia. Based on unique primary data collected in 2006 in Ararat, Armavir and Vayots Dzor...

Following the two rounds of land reform in Ukraine since independence, household plot farmers emerged as the major suppliers to agricultural production. But they form a very heterogeneous group. Not all of them are equally successful, economically, and integrated to markets. In general, a...