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Cooperation in rural areas has become an important research objective in recent years. As part of efforts to revitalize rural areas, researchers have often examined the economic and environmental dimensions of cooperation. Agricultural economists have emphasized the importance of farmers’ market cooperation in reducing costs and increasing the competitiveness of family farms in the food supply chain. Other research has discussed the importance of farmer cooperation at regional and environmental levels for the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Many researchers have investigated why farmers do not collaborate despite the benefits and have identified the lack of trust and diversity of value systems as the main barriers to successful and long-term collaboration in rural areas (Ostrom, 2007; Riley et al., 2018; Westerink et al., 2017).
The ethnographic research was also based on the question of why farmers do not cooperate, but focused on the under-researched moral dimensions of farmers’ cooperation. It examined the moral sentiments, motives and actions of farmers, who consequently have different experiences with and views on formal and informal forms of cooperation in their rural communities. The study was conducted in north-eastern Slovenia, where other researchers have identified the need for greater economic and environmental cooperation between farmers (Erjavec et al., 2016). The research methodology was based on focused ethnography (periodic short-term fieldwork) and 7 months of participant observation. The researcher conducted more than 50 semi-structured interviews between 2018 and 2023, mainly with members of farming families, but also with agricultural extension workers, priests, journalists, representatives of agricultural companies and organisations, and others. The collected empirical material was analysed using the moral economy approach, which focuses on people’s conceptions of a life worth living, their attributions of responsibility for a decent life, and their perceptions of injustice in economic relationships (see Narotzky and Besnier, 2014; Sayer, 2011; Thompson, 1993).
The ethnographic study has shown that farmers often associate their well-being with their ability to invest systematically in the development of the farm. According to the farmers, their economic situation has become increasingly unstable over the last 15 years. This has had a negative impact on their culture of cooperation, as they have traditionally activated family networks and imposed new responsibilities on close relatives in uncertain times. In addition, farms have been abandoned and farmers find it difficult to work with so-called reliable and comparable production partners as there are not many farmers nearby. This is also the case because in practise there are many moral judgments and sentiments of envy, resentment and injustice towards other farmers. According to the respondents, the moral sentiments arise due to land abuse, unequal informal sharing of machinery, collapse of cooperatives, cheating by traders and lack of entitlement to subsidies. Moreover, farmers do not cooperate because they believe that they cannot change and overcome the power imbalance in the food supply chain.
All this shows that the farmers interviewed will find it difficult to unite for various reasons. They emphasise that they need a just and hardworking person to restore and maintain their culture of cooperation. In the socialist past, this function was often performed by local researchers and agricultural advisors, who are no longer as present in rural communities as they were in the past.
Erjavec E., Juvančič L., Rac I., Dešnik S. 2016. Agriculture-based strategies for areas hit by economic crisis (Slovenia): Case study SI-3. Grad, Pegasus
Narotzky S., Besnier N. 2014. Crisis, value, and hope: Rethinking the economy. Current Anthropology, 55, S9: S4–S16
Ostrom E. 2007. Collective action theory. In: The Oxford handbook of comparative politics. 1st ed. Boix C., Stokes S. (eds.). Oxford, Oxford University Press: 186–208
Riley M., Sangster H., Smith H., Chiverrell R., Boyle J. 2018. Will farmers work together for conservation?: The potential limits of farmers’ cooperation in agri-environment measures. Land Use Policy
Sayer A. 2011. Why things matter to people: Social science, values and ethical life. 1st ed. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
Thompson E. P. 1993. Customs in common. 2nd ed. London, Penguin Books
Westerink J., Jongeneel R., Polman N., Prager K., Franks J., Dupraz P., Mettepenningen E. 2017. Collaborative governance arrangements to deliver spatially coordinated agri-environmental management. Land Use Policy, 69: 176–192
| Keywords | farmer cooperation; moral economy; ethnography; moral sentiments |
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