Cooperation Performance And Its Surplus Allocation Along "Farmer+Cooperative+Supermarket" Mode

This dissertation takes "farmer+cooperative+supermarket" mode, a representative of "Farmer-supermarket direct-purchase" modes as the example, using a survey data of579broccoli planters, together with other interview materials of cooperatives and supermarkets from Shandong, Hainan and Zhejiang Province. The dissertation also analyses the cooperation performance and its surplus allocation from the mode of "farmer+cooperative+supermarket’’This dissertation provides theoretical and empirical answers to the following four key questions among "farmer+cooperative+supermarket" mode:(1) How does the mode of "farmer+cooperative+supermarket" create cooperation surplus in agri-product supply chain?(2) Does this mode increase farmers’income?(3) What changes of famer’s behavior do the mode spur?(4) Is any fair and efficient allocation system of cooperation surplus established in agri-product supply chain by "farmer+cooperative+supermarket" mode? The answers to the above four questions can be summarized as the conclusions of the dissertation.(1) An effective cooperation based on the mode of "farmer+cooperative+supermarket" among farmers, cooperatives and supermarkets has successfully increased broccoli’s market value by improvement of broccoli’s quality and control of broccoli’s cost. In addition, the mode of "farmer+cooperative+supermarket" creates a lot of cooperation surplus by innovation of agri-product quality, production’s method, cooperative mode as well as selling market.(2) The econometrics model results of factors of broccoli planter’s net income also show that marketing channel has significant effects on farmer’s net income. Farmers who sell their products directly to supermarkets via cooperative gain more net income than those sell products via market channels like wet market, wholesale market, processing enterprise’s contract, and do not sell directly to supermarket via cooperative. Furthermore, significant factors including householder’s age, village’s leader, training’s frequency, acreage of broccoli, acquisition of market information and distance of transaction affect farmer’s net income.(3) The results indicate that technical efficiency of the mode of "farmer+cooperative+supermarket" begins to fall because the mode implemented by farmers has restricted their right of adjusting input factors. However, the "farmer+ cooperative+supermarket" mode can improve economic efficiency because it improves premium price of broccoli by safety production and processing. The results also demonstrate that factors including marketing channel, acreage of broccoli, numbers of agricultural labors in a family, pesticide buying method, pesticide cost and inputs of chemical fertilizer had significant effects on farmer’s safety production behavior. In addition, the results show that marketing channel, training frequency, numbers of agricultural labors in a family, expectation on prices of processing, recognition of processing methods, supporting facilities of processing are significant factors influencing farmer’s behavior of product processing.(4) Cooperation surplus allocation depends on the partners’ability of information acquisition and risk control during "farmer+cooperative+supermarket" mode. Among the three partners of supply chain, a part of the surplus acts as farmer’s premium price regarding production, a part of the surplus is shared by cooperatives as economical rent for their social network resources and the remains is distributed to the supermarket in the form of excess profit. The results also demonstrate that factors including agricultural input, farmer’s recognition, marketing channel and governmental policy had significant effects on farmer’s ability in information acquisition. The results also show that farmer’s identity, sales contract, market’s information and governmental policy are significant factors influencing farmer’s ability of risk control.In conclusion, from the perspective of relationship between cooperation and competition among different partners in agri-product supply chain, the dissertation combines theoretical and empirical analysis effectively to analysis cooperation performance and its surplus allocation between different bodies from the mode of "farmer+cooperative+supermarket". So the dissertation explores to expand the application of the classical theories as following:Firstly, an analytical framework has been constructed for the analyses of factors influencing market value of agri-products. by applying the Theory of Competitive Advantage of M. Porter. Secondly, this dissertation puts forward a theoretical basis of farmer’s behavior of safety production and product processing, based on the induced institutional change and induced technological change theory. Last but not least, based on the Theory of Property Rights of Y. Barzel, this dissertation also analyses surplus allocation scheme among different partners from their ability of information acquisition and risk control in agi-product supply chain.