ABSTRACT
After their inception in the mid-1940s, agricultural cooperatives were used by the state as an instrument for promoting agricultural and rural development. New cooperative legislation, promulgated in 1966, gave the government extensive powers to intervene directly in cooperative organizations. In the 1970s, in response to decelerating growth and increasing regional inequalities, the role of cooperatives was redefined and widened. The ecological limits for the types of produce made dependent on cooperative marketing have determined the basic geographical pattern of registrations. In the period 1971–83, the relationship between environment and survival became insignificant; the effect of produce orientation also became more ambiguous. The cooperative legislation constitutes the main institutional means of ensuring that members’ ability to control their societies has remained limited.
