The role of cooperatives in the rural credit policy

Abstract

Cooperatives have been shown to be relevant organizations in the primary sector of the Brazilian economy, acting as means of commercialization, access to credit and access to public policies for its members. In this study, were analyzed the participation of agricultural cooperatives and credit unions in terms of access and operations of funding the farmers. This is an exploratory and descriptive study. We have used public data from the Brazilian Central Bank. The results demonstrate that co-operative organizations are important players to rural credit public policy. The finds strongly suggest an agenda of studies on the roles of the agricultural cooperatives and credit unions. For instance, we must discover the determinants of access to rural credit, since we found the access was concentrated on South, in particular, at Parana State, and if the credit unions are efficient contractual arrangements or only one equilibrium to actual institutional framework.