Research On The Farmers' Cooperative System In My Country

This article studies internal legal issues in farmer cooperatives, summarizes domestic and international classical theories and experience of cooperatives, tracks the latest achievements in theories and practices of Western cooperatives. Moreover, the article explores the most suitable development orientation under the Chinese context, aiming at building a legal system framework ultimately to better serve internal governance and business competition of Chinese farmers cooperatives.The key to improving governance and efficiency lies in regulating and perfecting mechanism of property-right system, the surplus distribution system, member protection system and the core system which is legal person governing.Demutualization in the internal governance is not to completely abandon, but to selectively promote the conventional system by combining, optimizing and innovating the traditional and the modern commercial corporation systems under the premise that members voluntarily prefer mutual cooperation and serving for other members'life.Unclear property ownership of public-accumulated, single fund scale change and source of funds, inefficiency in allocation of resources, are the main problems facing system of property rights of farmers' cooperatives. To improve the property right system of cooperative organizations in China, we should revise the "Voluntary and open membership system", and an internal mechanism should be established, in which the members'admission and investment are connected with the trading volume. We should explore the integrating points between the basic principles of cooperatives and market economy. Through setting up a cooperative capital maintenance system and promoting the diversity of fund sources and property right systems, we can stimulate the companying of cooperatives.The core matter of a legal person governing system in the farmers cooperatives is how to standardize the operation, minimize the cost, and maximize the productivity by rationally allocating power resources and identifying responsibilities between internal institutions. In view of the strong color of being "government-controlled" and the formalistic democratic system in the operation of cooperative organizations in China, we should further improve the establishment procedures and processes of regulations so as to promote the standardization of cooperatives; so the regulations, as the "constitution " of the cooperatives, will play a core role. In addition, we should pay great attention to the control and balance of internal members in the development of cooperatives; we should decrease the proportion of fund source from big shareholders, establish a motivation system that relates salary highly with one's contribution, give full play to the supervisory board in supervision, enhance the education in farmers'cooperative awareness, and raise farmers'sense of participation.Whether in terms of legal issues or practices, there are many problems concerned with surplus distribution systems. The trading volume being the sole principle of surplus distribution system does not accord with the theories and realities of cooperative systems, and the items and sequences of surplus return are to improve. The system designing of future surplus return of cooperative organizations in China should cater to the trend of modern cooperatives:the evaluating factors of the surplus distribution system should be plural; we should properly handle the issues in the drawing of public welfare funds and accumulation funds, the sequence of trade and bonus sharing and the salary of advanced managers. We should further improve the decision-making, operating and supervising process of surplus distribution. A more rational surplus distribution procedure should be established to achieve the balance of interests between the parties in farmer cooperatives.Members of cooperatives and the organizations themselves are the basic elements of national cooperative law, which are put in a weak position. They are protected by the law on cooperatives. To solve the problem of heterogeneity of cooperative members, members of cooperatives should first clarify the nature of the right, main content, form and value pursuit. Secondly farmers cooperatives should recognize the special causes of heterogeneity of members and solve the "center-periphery" structure caused by the difference of economic strength, needs and interests between ordinary farmers and directors. Meanwhile, it is necessary to recognize and protect the economic and democratic rights of members of the cooperative and strive to ensure farmers cooperatives" rights and those of their members are under maximized balance and protection.