Premises and prospects for organising and developing secondary and tertiary producers’ cooperatives in Ukraine: the case of dairy service cooperatives

The purpose of the article is to identify the premises and prospects for organising and developing secondary and tertiary producers’ cooperatives in Ukraine, specifically for dairy service cooperatives. Research methods. The research uses dialectical methods of cognition and monographic method – for the analysis of works of Ukrainian and foreign scientists on the problem of agricultural dairy cooperation; empirical and graphical methods – to demonstrate the state of the cooperative movement in European countries and interactions between three levels of cooperatives; remote survey method – to find out the opinions of co-operators about secondary and tertiary cooperatives; abstract logical methods – for theoretical generalizations and formulation of conclusions. Research results. Most cooperators seek a collective solution to the problems of a competitive business environment in Ukraine. The functioning of cooperative unions, which include dairy cooperatives (secondary cooperatives), improved interaction between participants in the dairy business and contributed to better organization of agricultural production in rural communities. According to the respondents’ opinions, the tertiary cooperative is designed to support farmers and cooperatives in solving such significant problems as restrictive legislation, or to support in the process of such critical reforms for agricultural producers as land reform. Those organisations may be able to influence the market conditions, to raise the funding or subsidies for small-scale dairy farmers. Scientific novelty. This article identified the reasons for small-scale dairy farmers to cooperate and their opinions about premises and prospects for organising and developing secondary and tertiary farming cooperatives in Ukraine. It highlighted perspective points of development and improvement for such organizations to support the further functioning of the rural dairy business in Ukraine. In particular, the respondents of surveyed secondary cooperatives are aware of prospective benefits from cooperative unions and expect something similar from starting the tertiary cooperative. They prefer those to be organised based on sectoral mandate and mainly concentrated on legislation and funding matters, but 80% of respondents have doubts about practical realisation of this idea because of such risks as corruption and shadow economy matters. It is important to stress that secondary cooperatives are the business organizations and in the worldwide experience aiming at marketing, processing or trading the production, gaining the bargaining power and market share. Practical significance. Scientists and experts of the agricultural economy can use the results of the study to support the development of secondary and tertiary dairy service cooperatives for improving the working conditions in rural communities with cooperatives and business environment for small-scale dairy producers in Ukraine. Tabl.: 2. Figs.: 1. Refs.: 19.