Las relaciones verticales y el poder de negociación de los agricultores integrados en forma de cooperativa frente a los individuales

Relations among the agricultural sector, the food industry and the retail sector take many forms, making it difficult to draw up a sufficiently exhaustive analytic framework capable of being generalised to all food activities. The nature of these relations depends to a great measure on the bargaining power of each of the agents taking part. Hence, for example, organising farmers into co-operatives or other forms of association raises their bargaining power with the food industry and/or the retail sector. In this way, following a methodology integrating “filière” analysis and the Structure-Conduct-Results model for Industrial Organisation, an empirical study is carried out with the aim of determining if differences exist in the vertical relations and bargaining power of Tenerife potato farmers associated to co-operatives versus independent growers in the area. Research results show that farmers associated to co-operatives and their customers and suppliers enjoy greater stability due to the existence of written contracts, though it is also true that they are dominated by oligopoly figures who supply and distribute the agricultural inputs and outputs, who are knowledgeable about the market and occur at the beginning and the end of the “filière”. Hence horizontal integration becomes a necessary strategy for the survival of the primary sector in Tenerife, with the aim of carrying out vertical integration enabling control of the product production and distribution chain.