GAF
What differentiates an agricultural cooperative from an agricultural collective?
Cooperatives are organizations that belong to their members, who direct and manage them. Its form of property is collective property
Agricultural cooperatives and agricultural collectives are not the same, although the terms may lead to some confusion. On the website of the Ministry of Agriculture (Minag), the Legal Directorate of this body has seen fit to publish the differences between both production structures. In the first place, it is specified that agricultural cooperatives are economic-social organizations that are part of the agricultural and forestry production system, and that their general objective is the production of goods, fundamentally agricultural, and their commercialization, as well as the provision of services. through collective management for the satisfaction of the social interest and that of the cooperative members. Cooperatives are organizations that belong to their members, who direct and manage them. Its form of ownership is collective ownership and all members have equal voting rights. To be part of one, the interested parties submit the application to the municipal delegate of Agriculture, where they record, in addition to their general information, the appraisal or appraisal of the goods that the applicants incorporate into the cooperative and with the corresponding Certifications that prove ownership of the land, in the corresponding modality. It is important to take into account, clarifies the Minag, that cooperatives cannot carry out any type of activity. When they are constituted, a fundamental line of production or services is approved; and they may only carry out other secondary activities as long as they do not hinder the fulfillment of their main activity. A natural person can be a cooperative member without working in the cooperative, since workers can be employed in them through work contracts for a fixed period of time for the execution of temporary tasks. Agricultural cooperatives can establish contractual relationships with state companies, especially to receive services; and they can sell the products in the agricultural communities, in the network of retail stores, in the wholesale agricultural markets, and to other economic actors, after fulfilling their contractual commitments. They can also market directly with the industry or processing plants, the mini-industries and the entities of the tourism system. The agricultural collective, for its part, is the group of workers organized in a cost center of a state entity, company or Base Business Unit to carry out agricultural production, with responsibility for the efficient use of raw materials, the use of machinery and infrastructure, and does not constitute an independent economic entity. The head of the group, who is the natural person designated by the director to organize agricultural production, agrees with the group of permanent workers the income to be paid to each of them as salary, in correspondence with the productive, economic and financial situation of your area.
