Social relationships and governing collaborative actions in rural areas: Some evidence from agricultural producer groups in Poland

An important characteristic of the European Union's rural development policy is a continuous re-focusing from problems involving solely individual actions to problems involving collective actions. In this paper, we investigate factors encouraging positive solutions to coordination problems in rural areas by having a closer look at social interactions between individuals who decided to engage in collective action of participating in agricultural producer groups. Using a unique dataset from Poland, we differentiate between three types of organisations governing collaborative actions: groups with family bonds, groups based on acquaintanceships and groups without those two kinds of social ties. Our analysis provides some evidence that farmers who attach more weight to trust and cooperation organise producer groups around kinship and acquaintanceship relations. Further, we document that groups based on these two types of interactions seem to be smaller than groups which use impersonal mechanisms to solve commitment problems. Finally, we provide some evidence that using kinship or acquaintanceship relationships enables cooperation between heterogeneous farmers.