Les Coopératives agropastorales: un nouveau modèle socio-organisationnel de développement ?

In most countries, agricultural export products (coffee, sugar, cocoa, etc.) are part of increasingly open markets, but often remain controlled by an oligopoly of intermediaries, exerting significant pressure on the prices. This market structure is generally considered unfavorable for small producers, who can only capture a small share of the value created in the sector and have little leeway to improve the social or even environmental impact of their activity. The actors of value chain affirming the principles of collective solidarity tend to promote and strengthen producers' organization, processing and / or marketing particularly in the legal form of cooperatives. Although it is estimated that there are more than 569,000 cooperatives with more than one billion people worldwide, the role played by these structures in social development is controversial. So, the problem of the role played by these forms of social structures in improving community well-being remains a fundamental preocupation. The objective of this work was to analyze the contribution of agropastoral cooperatives on the development of the communities in which they are established. Clearly, it is on the one hand to determine the social impact of the partnership between producers and agro-industries operating in the areas of exploitation, production and processing; on the other hand, to determine the prerequisites for bringing together the model based on farmers' expertise and that based on scientific knowledge for sustainable and equitable production. The methodology of this work was based on the exploratory approach. It constituted in the research, the exploitation and the documentary analysis. Secondary source data were used using descriptive statistics. The results of this work show that the cooperative organization is a possible framework to encourage producers, to implement individually and collectively actions that are a priori favorable to development as a whole. Cooperatives, while constituting development poles, are not yet able to induce a lasting positive ripple effect in developing countries. This commitment is not given absolutely by the cooperative status alone. It depends on a series of factors. The bad structuring, the sprinkling of the governmental initiatives, the leadership between the cooperators, the poor governance etc. send out among others, the explanatory factors of this slowness of take-off. On the other hand, the observed effect is contrary in the developed countries where the cooperatives constitute levers of development. However, frank collaboration between research, peasants and consumers is a lever of development or even the precondition for promoting a fair productive model. Endogenous knowledge should be the starting point for the production of scientific knowledge. In this case, adoption and implementation of the resulting technology will be made across a broad spectrum within communities. As an obstacle, it is noted the weak structuring, the difficulty of constituting capital and the limited access to financing as well as a market. The Limagrain model is a cooperative model par excellence that reconciles economic development, environmental performance, social and societal responsibility. In short, the definition of a new social contract is the sine qua non condition to contribute to the development of agropastoral cooperatives and to reinforce their social responsibility; which responsibility is linked to the promotion of community development, increased productivity and food security, the empowerment of members, the facilitation of market access (...) and, by extension, the well-being of communities.