Bargaining in agriculture is collective because an agent represents multiple principals, the farmers, in contrast to an agent who negotiates on behalf of a single or corporate entity. Collective bargaining adds the complication of securing commitments from several individuals, each possibly...

The Pedernales Electric Cooperative (PEC) is the largest rural electric cooperative in the US. In this case, readers learn about various principal-agent problems that occurred at PEC and the steps taken to correct such problems. Electric cooperatives are a vital part of the US electrical grid....

Farmer cooperative managers and directors were contracted to determine their perspectives of the cooperative environment. Special emphasis was given to assessing their perceptions of division of responsibility between management and the board of directors, the importance of cooperative...

Cooperative directors’ perceptions of their roles, knowledge, and implementation of cooperative principles, business decision making, financial analysis, cooperative law, and division of responsibility with management were analyzed using data from forty-eight agricultural and thirty-one...

The objective of this article is to describe the key elements of cooperative finance that have been found in the literature and illustrate how they relate to the function and structure of cooperatives.

The Oklahoma Food Cooperative (OFC) facilitates transactions between producers and consumers of locally-grown food items. Although the OFC has more than 3,000 members, the cooperative is still working to discover member needs and ensure its long-term sustainability. Both consumer-members and...

While proponents claim that fair trade provides meaningful benefits for participating commodity growers, few studies to date have measured these benefits on a global scale. This study estimates the worldwide monetary benefits that fair trade provides to participating coffee farmers, most of whom...

This study analyzes factors influencing farmer interest in marketing switchgrass through contracts and/or joining a cooperative that harvests, transports, stores, and markets their switchgrass. Data are from a survey of farmers in 12 southern states. A bivariate probit analysis is used to...

This study examines the price competitiveness of marketing and production contracts depending on whether contracts are with cooperatives or investorowned firms. A propensity score matching method is used to compare prices using contract data from a national farm-level survey. The results show...