Agricultural Cooperatives for rural Development in Romania

The organic market has been increasing in the past couple of years and it is still expected to do so. However, even though the prices are higher on the organic market, farmers do not always manage to benefit from these better prices. Romania is a country with a high potential for organic agriculture as there are 14.8 million hectares of agricultural land out of which arable land represents 8.9 million ha. According to NIS (2012a p. 89), in 2011, 29.2% of the country’s population was employed in agriculture. However, most households in rural areas produce for mere survival due mainly to the highly fragmented land owning. Therefore there is an acute need for new development strategies in order to improve living standards in rural areas. This article describes business models of organic cooperatives in Nepal and Romania. Moreover it proposes a rural development initiative based on the creation of organic cooperatives and suggests thata NGOs could implement such a program.