| Along the way of international poverty reduction, the United Nations has attached great importance to Sustainable Livelihood (SL) and points out that stable livelihood contributes to the coordinated development of policies, reduce poverty and sustainable use of resources. The Sustainable Livelihood Approach (SLA) Framework has been widely accepted and applied in international anti-reduction projects. In poverty-reduction efforts, SLA focus on both the vulnerable contexts that result in rural livelihood vulnerability and the natural, physical, financial, human and social capitals that rural poor (potentially) possess to deal with risks and uncertainties in life.It can be seen from researches concerning to farmers’cooperatives and rural poverty reduction that, in the first place, the academic circle’s understanding of poverty has gone through the process of focusing on material deficiency to incapability and then the lack of right, and rural poverty reduction efforts have correspondingly gone through the process of providing material support to the development of farmers’ability and then to empower the farmers, but very limited attention has been given to international leading theories and Non-governmental Organizations; in the second place, very few scholars in China concentrate on the roles of farmers’cooperatives in rural poverty reduction, which has long been the focus of the international community.Therefore, in this article, with field study and questionnaires, the author takes SLA as analytical framework, one farmers’ cooperative in Zhu Madian City as example to analyze the roles of farmers’cooperatives in rural poverty reduction by giving a detailed description of the history, management philosophy, running of the farmers’cooperative and the ways to attract and manage its members.The study shows that farmers’ cooperatives in developing areas play a positive role in increasing the income of families, increasing the diversity of their livelihoods, investing in human capital and empowering the rural farmers, which are right the focuses of international organizations in poverty reduction. However, farmers’ cooperatives in developing areas of China also face a series of problems and challenges, for example, the industrial chain is too short and farmers’cooperatives play a relatively limited role in stimulating farmers to plant economic crops, and that they have difficulties in recruiting proper talents. Therefore, optimizing human management systems, prolonging their industrial chains and empowering the rural people should be the priorities of farmers’ cooperatives in less developed areas of China. |
