CORPORATE & CO-OPERATIVE AGRICULTURE

Saddam Hussain12-arid-291

B.Sc (Hons) agriculture3nd semester Morning (c)

PMAS Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi

PMAS– Arid agriculture university Rawalpindi

Contents:Corporate agriculture or farming.• What is corporate agriculture?• Why we adopt corporate agriculture?• CORPORATE FARMING ORDINANCE (CFO)-2001.

• Merits and Demerits of corporate agriculture.Cooperative agriculture or farming.• What is cooperative agriculture?• Needs for cooperative farming.• Merits and demerits of cooperative farming.• Refrences.

What is corporate agriculture?• Definition: It is a term that describes the business of agriculture OR The

practices of mega corporations involved in food production on a very large scale.

It is a modern food industry concept include not only farm itself but also entire chain of Agriculture related business, including seed supply, agrochemicals, food processing, machinery, storage, transportation, distribution, advertising & retail sales.

Why we adopt corporate agriculture?• As the small farmers of Pakistan are unable to

adapt new technologies and cannot afford the costly input required to get optimum yield from new crop varieties.

• The idea of Corporate Farming was to cultivate all waste Lands in Pakistan by bringing foreign corporations, which Would cultivate these lands by modern technologies by Employing local labor, at attractive wages, train local People, pay local taxes, develop roads and communication net-works, and bring prosperity at nominal profits to themselves

CORPORATE FARMING ORDINANCE (CFO)-2001

Corporate Farming Ordinance (CFO) was passed in 2001 Under which listed corporations could lease land in the Country for 99 years, broken into two periods of 50 years And 49 years. Besides, the then government had identified6.764 million acres of State lands for leasing to different corporations.

CORPORATE FARMING MERITS • New Technology Use

• High Employment

• Increase in Production and economic activity

• Reduce Fragmentation

• Increases Export Performance

• Handsome Share of Taxes to the Government

CORPORATE FARMING DEMERITS .

• Non-sustainable Production

• Makes farmers landless

• Undermines local production

• Undermines local farm machinery

• Rural migration to urban areas

CONCLUSION• Corporate farming is good and it will help to increase the

productivity of the farms as observed in various regions because it is backed & financed by big corporations.

• It will enhance the use of highly advanced technology and will also develop our farm-market infrastructure and will also increase agricultural products export.

• It will also provide employment opportunities to agriculture graduates and farmers.

• The present condition of Pakistan’s agriculture indicates that the prospects of corporate farming in Pakistan is bright subject to the managerial skills of the companies and their relationship with the local community/small farmers.

Cooperative agriculture or farming.

• Definition: It is working together towards a common end OR

cooperative agriculture is a system of organized Agriculture established under an association owned and operated by the farmers of a locality to have mutual benefits regarding cultivation & harvest of their farm products, purchase of farm equipments, machinery etc. supply of inputs at lowest possible rates, processing & marketing of produce to earn maximum possible returns.

Need for co-operative Farming:• Motivation for the co-operative farming is sometimes described as

“overcoming the curse of smallness”.• Co-operative, being an association of a large number of small farmers,

act as a large business entity in the market reaping the significant advantages of economies of the scale that are not available to its members individually. Three typical examples are a machinery pool, marketing cooperative and a credit union.

• A family farm may be too small to justify the purchase of a tractor or any other required farm machinery/equipment for its own use, machinery pool purchases the necessary equipment for joint use of all members as needed.

• It provides the means of transportation for delivery of farm produce to market. Small farms may not have means, cooperative act as integrator, collecting out put of small farmers (members) deliver it in large quantities through market channels.

• Finance facilities by co-operative banks/commercial banks to individual farmers, bank may refuse or charge high interest rate.

Merits of cooperative farming:• Members pool their land into a single unit.• They also pool their man-power and other resources. • Ownership of land continues to be with the individual

members.• The society is formed voluntarily and is run on co-

principles.• Members receive remuneration according to the work

done and the land contributed for joint cultivation.• Society lays down the program for farm operations and

each member does his assigned work according to the scheme.

• Management of resources is conducted jointly. • Members have the option to leave the organization.

Demerits of cooperative farming:• No increase in production: It has been argued that in big

farms productivity per man increases but not per acre so in cooperative farming production not increased.

• Lack of initiative and responsibility: Co-operative farming involving the entire productive activity of all their members will leave hardly any scope for personal initiative and sense of responsibility.

• Lack of trained personnel: Scheme of co-operative farming can succeed only if the same are being implemented by trained and efficient personnel and hence there is a little chance of co-operative farming being successful.

• Failure in other parts of the world Co-operative farming has not succeeded in 'most parts of the

world. If they have achieved good results in countries like Israel, it was because of special religious sentiments.

Conclusion:• Corporate Agriculture though can serve as a means of

high tech agriculture enterprise, generate local & foreign reserves, however, a strict regulatory frame work of Govt. is a pre requisite, otherwise, it will be catastrophic

• Although, cooperative agriculture system has certain challenges in socio-economic, cultural & politically divided rural farming communities, if Govt. empowers & strengthens the cooperative institutions it will offer enormous opportunities of development in Agriculture sector.

References.• Cooperative Farming Booklet No. 72.• Corporative farming presentation of DR. MIDRAR UL HAQ.

Thanks