Cooperative Farming As An Alternative To Share Renting In Bangladesh: Test Of Some Hypotheses

This paper seeks to examine the possibility of cooperative farming as an alternative to share renting with the help of data on three experimental cooperative farms in Bangladesh. It has been observed that cooperative farms may provide an alternative to share renting only if due shares of returns for all land and non-land resources supplied by members are ensured. Due to absence of such provisions, practice of renting was prevalent in the cooperative farms under study. There is evidence that under the existing methods of organization of the cooperative farms, the members of small and medium farm size, unlike similar size groups of non-members, tended to increase their operated area significantly by renting in more land than they rented out. This is possibly the reflection of the less exploitative terms of share renting in the cooperative farming areas compared to other areas. In the long-term content, however, the objective of equity in income distribution will be blurred by the parallel existence of share renting within the co-operative farms since it will provide a source of income transfer from tenant members to land-owner members.