Agricultural extension, the solution of the identity crisis of cooperatives

Abstract

The emergence of cooperative groups created by companies with a co-operative status, upstream production, and private companies resulted in the rupture of their relationship with their members. This paper addresses the role of agricultural consultation in strengthening the relationship between cooperatives and their members in order to resolve the inherent identity crisis of such groups. A qualitative method based on the case study of five groups allowed us to study the interactions between communities through a new mode of knowledge management characterised by the interaction between functional groups and communities of practice: the Model 3. We show that agricultural advisors act as translators between the two cognitive communities and this facilitates the resolution of the identity crisis of agricultural cooperatives.

Keywords

• agricultural extension
• extension system
• agricultural cooperatives
• cognitive communities
• knowledge management.