Une histoire de la coopération agricole de production en France

CUMAs (Coopératives d’utilisation de matériel agricole, agricultural machinery cooperatives) and GAECs (Groupements agricoles d’exploitation en commun, partnerships of family farms) are relatively well-known types of business groupings in French agriculture. It is therefore interesting to look at some other forms, a few of which are part of the tradition of agricultural producer cooperatives (full-fledged cooperatives comparable to SCOP worker cooperatives), in particular the “rural communities”, SCAECs (Sociétés coopératives agricoles d’exploitation en commun, a rare form of farmers’ cooperatives) and the “coopératives de culture en commun” (farming collectives proposed by a project that was abandoned in the late 1940s). This study presents various possible explanations for the failure or very limited impact of these projects. These possible explanations draw from a variety of disciplines (political science, sociology, law, socio-ethnology, etc.).