There are substantial cooperatives undertaking processing and marketing functions in the dairy, rice, cotton, sugar, meat, tobacco, egg and horticulture industries.
Cooperatives are also important in the farm supply sector.
Deregulation and the globalisation of business is increasing the competitiveness of the business environment, and this is impacting on cooperatives as it is on other types of businesses. Some of the weaknesses of the cooperative model are being exposed as a result. Tour participants were mostly directors of cooperatives, with five being from dairy cooperatives and the others being from the rice, egg and horticulture industries. The purpose was to study trends in cooperative structures as well as to observe developments in agribusinesses more broadly. This report is concerned with structural issues only and draws on the relevant literature as well as observations made on the tour.