Organic EprintsEncouraging Collective Farmers Marketing InitiativesDefinition of the problem: Collective Farmers Marketing Initiatives (COFAMIs) potentially provide an answer to the challenges set to European farmers by changing market and policy conditions. By pooling ideas, experiences and capital they enable farmers to build up market knowledge and linkages, and create a favourable environment for the dissemination of skills and best practices. Also, concentration of offer may open up scale advantages, strengthen the collective bargaining power of producers, and make them attractive market partners for retailers operating at larger scales. More generally, COFAMIs have the potential to reinforce rural incomes and employment, strengthen synergies with other economic activities, and bring agriculture more in line with the demands set by wider society. Project aims including target group: This project aims to strengthen the role of COFAMIs by identifying the social, economic, cultural and political factors that limit/enable their development. Additionally, it seeks to formulate viable support strategies to enhance their performance, dissemination and continuity. By means of national status-quo analyses and a set of in-depth case studies it addresses the existing diversity of COFAMIs in Europe to determine the relative influence of different types of limiting/enabling factors. The overall objective of the project is: To identify the social, economic, cultural and political factors that are limiting/enabling farmers to pool ideas, experiences and capital in the development of co-operative producer organisations and marketing initiatives that adequately respond to changing market and policy conditions. In addition to the identification of barriers, limitations and success factors, the project seeks to identify viable strategies and appropriate support measures for enhancing the performance, dissemination and continuity of collective marketing initiatives. Methodology: - Qualitative case-study analysis - Action research design - Expert consultation Policy environments and social economy Farming SystemsProject description

Deposit Agreement

In depositing this eprint (a collection of files and associated bibliographic metadata), I grant Organic Eprints the right to make it permanently available on-line, with open access to all or in accordance with any access restrictions that I have specified. (Removal of eprints from the public archive is strongly discouraged, but will be granted upon request.)
I understand that Organic Eprints does not assume any responsibility if there is any breach of copyright in distributing these files or metadata.

For work being deposited by its own first author: I declare that this eprint is my own intellectual property and that I have the right to make it available in Organic Eprints in the manner chosen.

For work being deposited by someone other than its first author: I declare that I have gained the proper permissions from someone with the right to make this eprint available in Organic Eprints in the manner chosen - or that the material is in the public domain.

Clicking on the deposit button indicates your agreement to these terms. If you do not wish to deposit the eprint right now you can return to your user area, where you will find this eprint in your workspace. You can then later edit, clone and deposit it.