(Take Jiangsu as an example) 1. Definition of New Rural Cooperative Economic Organization

After the founding of New China, there has been a cooperative trend in rural areas of China, and it has experienced tortuous development and changes with the passage of time. This change process has gone through five stages: mutual aid groups-primary cooperatives-advanced cooperatives-people's communes-household contract system. From agricultural mutual aid groups to advanced agricultural production cooperatives, the degree of collectivization is getting higher and higher. In the advanced agricultural cooperative, it is no longer an agricultural cooperative organization in the general sense, but has the component of "national collective ownership", and the people's commune is a typical "national collective ownership", which is not suitable for the analysis of the "cooperative economic theory" originated from the West.

The new rural cooperative economic organization refers to all kinds of new agricultural cooperative economic forms that appeared in rural areas of China in the late 1990s. According to the investigation of the Ministry of Agriculture, as of 2003, the total number of rural specialized cooperative economic organizations in China has reached1.4000, of which1.4000 has a certain scale and basic operating norms, which basically covers all aspects of rural production. From June 5th to February, 2003, the 10th the National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) incorporated the farmers' cooperative economic organization law into the legislative norms. With the promulgation of relevant laws, the new rural cooperative economic organizations will flourish under a more standardized framework.

At present, academic circles and government departments have three different understandings of the new rural cooperative economic organizations: one is the broadest understanding, including various agricultural cooperatives, farmers' professional associations, township and village collective economic organizations, rural joint-stock cooperative enterprises, supply and marketing cooperatives and credit cooperatives; The second is a broader understanding, including all kinds of agricultural cooperatives, farmers' professional associations, township and village collective economic organizations and rural joint-stock cooperative enterprises; Third, in a narrow sense, it only refers to all kinds of agricultural professional cooperatives, and defines agricultural cooperatives as "cooperative economic organizations in which producers and operators of similar products voluntarily unite to safeguard and develop the interests of their members, operate independently, serve themselves, and be responsible for their own profits and losses."

Most scholars in this paper agree to define the new cooperative economic organization as an economic organization in which Chinese farmers carry out the same production and operation activities in accordance with the articles of association on the basis of household contract management at the turn of the century, in accordance with the principles of voluntary participation, freedom of withdrawal, democratic management and surplus return. At present, there are two main forms: one is professional cooperative economic organizations, that is, various agricultural cooperatives. Generally speaking, farmers engaged in a certain professional production, in order to achieve prenatal and postnatal cooperation, pay membership fees, enjoy information, use facilities and coordinate their behavior to protect the interests of their members. One is the joint-stock cooperative economy, which has the nature of capital participation and labor cooperation, and implements the combination of dividend sharing and return according to the transaction amount.

Of course, some scholars have pointed out that the rural joint-stock cooperative economy is not a cooperative economic organization juxtaposed with cooperatives, but a concrete form of agricultural cooperatives, similar to the "new generation cooperatives" in North Dakota. This view is not contradictory to the research of this paper. Rural joint-stock cooperative economy and agricultural cooperatives belong to new rural cooperative economic organizations.

According to the above definition, rural collective economic organizations do not meet the requirements of new rural cooperative economic organizations, because China's collective economic organizations do not follow the principle of voluntariness and do not recognize individual property rights. Farmers' associations cannot be generally classified as new cooperative economic organizations. Because some agricultural trade associations are non-profit organizations, they do not directly engage in business or participate in market competition, but simply provide information services and technical services and implement industry self-management. Agricultural trade associations that provide non-profit services internally and participate in market competition externally are close to agricultural cooperatives in nature and should be classified as new rural cooperative economic organizations.

Second, the development status of new rural cooperative economic organizations in Jiangsu Province

(1) General situation

Jiangsu is one of the provinces with the best rural economic development in China, and the new rural cooperative economic organizations are developing rapidly in Jiangsu. According to the latest data from the Provincial Department of Agriculture and Forestry, as of April 2006, there were 60 10 farmers' specialized cooperative economic organizations in Jiangsu Province, with1860,000 members, driving 2.84 million farmers. By the end of 2004, the province's farmers' professional cooperative organizations had net fixed assets of 2.36 billion yuan, owners' rights and interests of 3.74 billion yuan, annual sales of 20.86 billion yuan and surplus of 3.03 billion yuan, and returned secondary profits and share dividends of 740 million yuan, with an average of 22.72 billion yuan for each member. There are 539 farmers' specialized cooperative economic organizations with an annual turnover of 1 100 million yuan and 897 registered trademarks.

Due to the relatively developed economy in southern Jiangsu, the development of rural undertakings is also ahead of other regions. For example, in Changshu rural areas, the joint-stock cooperative economy and farmers' professional cooperatives represented by rural community joint-stock cooperative system and land joint-stock cooperative system have developed rapidly. Representative ones are Liyuan in Xingang, Yong 'an Agricultural Land Joint-stock Cooperative in Dong Bang, Meimeibei Joint-stock Economic Cooperative and Shanghu Special Aquatic Products Joint-stock Economic Cooperative in Yushan Town, Dayi, Heshi, Shajiabang Dairy Cow Professional Cooperative, Guli Nanyu Aquatic Products, Yangrenweifeng Ginkgo, Wangzhuang Dengcun Flower and Seedling Professional Cooperative, etc. There are 186 new cooperative economic organizations in the city, with 35,000 farmers, accounting for 15.2% of the total number of farmers. The total income is 283 million yuan, and the average farmer household is 8,086 yuan, including 85 professional cooperative organizations with farmers as the main body and relying on local leading industries and advantageous projects, with 2,524 farmers. In 2005, the total operating income of various cooperative economic organizations was1.1.50 million yuan, and the net income was 3 1.64 million yuan. The amount of share distribution and secondary distribution according to sales reached 1.2 1.45 million yuan. Together with the net income of direct socialized operation, the average income of farmers entering the cooperative is 8774 yuan. There are 1 10 cooperative economic organizations in Wuzhong District, Suzhou, with 1006 households and 169397 households, accounting for 46% of the farmers in the whole district. In addition to agricultural cooperatives, various forms of joint-stock cooperative economy are its highlights, mainly land joint-stock cooperatives. 39 community asset joint-stock cooperatives; 29 property joint-stock cooperatives, absorbing farmers' funds 1.8 1.44 million yuan; There are 2 leisure and sightseeing agricultural joint-stock cooperatives with 2,877 shareholders.

The new rural cooperative organization has played an important role in improving the competitive position of farmers in Jiangsu market, reducing the cost of agricultural production and operation, developing modern and efficient agriculture, increasing the added value of agricultural products, extending the industrial chain, promoting agricultural industrialization, and tapping the potential of increasing income within agriculture, which is embodied in the following points:

1. The new rural cooperative economic organization is an effective way to realize the connection between agricultural household management and big market. The household contract responsibility system has adapted to the biology, geographical dispersion and uneven production scale of agricultural production in China, greatly mobilized the enthusiasm of farmers and promoted the development of rural productivity. As a basic economic system, it will exist in China for a long time. However, with the development of market economy and agricultural modernization, the household contract responsibility system has gradually exposed its defects in docking with the market. Individual farmers must face buyers and sellers at the same time, because the individual strength is relatively small, and the impact on the supply and demand relationship of the whole market can be ignored. Under the general form of "company+farmers" combining production and marketing, farmers can only get the purchase price set by the company because of scattered production and low degree of organization, but they can't enjoy the market surplus, and market risks are often borne by farmers. Therefore, the contradiction between small production and big market always puts farmers at an extremely unfavorable position in market competition.

The establishment of new cooperative economic organizations can improve the degree of organization of farmers entering the market. Through specialized cooperation, individual farmers can connect into a powerful group, gain cooperative productivity and form competitiveness that can resist market risks and natural disasters. The establishment of rural cooperative economic organizations can solve the problems that community collective economic organizations can't "unify", government departments can't "package" and single households can't "do" under the conditions of market economy, and protect farmers' market interests. For example, farmers in Maji Town, Liuhe District, Nanjing, make a living by producing and selling cress, but they are often pressed by vegetable vendors, and good vegetables cannot be sold at a good price. In July 2005, Sheng Da Watercress Cooperative was established in this town. After one year's operation, the cooperative's sales reached10.6 million yuan, and the net profit was 696.5438+0 million yuan after deducting the public welfare fund, provident fund and members' purchase of Oenanthe javanica. Through the sale of cress to cooperatives, cooperatives pay dividends, and the highest annual net income of members is 70,000-80,000 yuan.

2. The new rural cooperative economic organization is a good carrier to popularize agricultural science and technology and improve farmers' scientific and technological quality. For a long time, scattered agricultural production has made it difficult to spread agricultural science and technology, and farmers' technical support mainly depends on self-study and the spread among neighbors and relatives. Farmers rely on economic organizations to enter the market, through the horizontal integration of economies of scale and the vertical integration of processing value-added, which is conducive to the application and promotion of modern science and technology and large-scale agricultural machinery. Rural cooperative economic organizations have become an important carrier of agricultural science and technology widely entering farmers' families.

The modern market puts forward high requirements for the scientific and technological content and quality and safety of agricultural products, and the improvement of the scientific and technological quality of agricultural employees has become an important factor affecting the development of agricultural industry. Farmers' cooperative economic organizations actively organize agricultural scientific and technological personnel and production technical experts to train farmers in scientific and technological knowledge, strengthen guidance on production activities, formulate and implement technical regulations for agricultural production, and require farmers to carry out standardized production, improve product quality and build superior brands of products. At the same time, the establishment of cooperative economic organizations is conducive to formulating technical standards in the same industry, realizing the integrated management of agricultural products production, processing and sales under unified standards, and realizing standardized production. For example, there is a tradition of raising cattle in furong town. At first, cows were raised by farmers in front of and behind their houses. The quality of milk is good and bad, and the overall quality is not high. Therefore, dairy companies often limit and reduce prices, resulting in losses. In 2005, the Cow Cooperative built a standard cowshed named "Cow Apartment" by raising funds, and all the cows raised by its members lived in the apartment. Under the guidance of technicians, the members carry out feeding management according to standardized production procedures, feed the prepared feed in a unified way according to scientific feeding requirements, inject vaccines in a unified way, feed and milk on time, and concentrate on dealing with breeding pollution. The members gave the milk to the cooperative, which then sold it to Bright Dairy Group. This not only improves the quality of milk, but also reduces the cost and increases the benefit. According to the cost calculated by the cooperative, according to the standardized production procedure, the cost of raising cows is reduced by 20%, the price of milk is increased by 15%, and the income of members is increased by about 45%.

3. The new rural cooperative economic organization is a positive guarantee for promoting agricultural industrialization and increasing farmers' income. As a fair representative of farmers' interests, rural cooperative economic organizations are effective organizational forms of agricultural industrialization. Rural cooperative economic organizations can not only organize scattered farmers to connect with large enterprises, but also operate their own agricultural products processing and sales enterprises. The relationship between cooperative organizations and farmers' members is not an external market transaction relationship, but a cooperative joint relationship formed for the same interests and not for profit. Farmer members can not only realize the value of agricultural production stably through cooperative organizations, but also get dividends and secondary rebates according to the transaction amount. In addition, cooperative organizations connect with other companies or leading enterprises in agricultural industrialization through investment and equity participation, so that companies, professional cooperative organizations and farmers can form an economic entity with * * * benefits and * * * risks, and realize real agricultural industrialization management.

By organizing and implementing professional cooperation, farmers have expanded the scale of characteristic production, greatly tapped farmers' production potential and improved labor productivity; On the other hand, through acquisition, similar products enter the market in a centralized and unified way, which prolongs the industrial chain of agricultural products and creates added value of products, which is more conducive to applying for trademark registration of excellent products, cultivating product brands, enhancing product market competitiveness, effectively protecting farmers' interests and increasing farmers' income. According to incomplete statistics, members of farmers' professional cooperatives included in the demonstration assessment in Jiangsu Province can increase their income by nearly 100 yuan per year compared with non-members

4. The new rural cooperative economic organization is an important bridge between the government and farmers. Because China's agriculture is widely dispersed, it is difficult for the government to face thousands of individual farmers, and cooperative economic organizations can just play a bridge role in the implementation of various agricultural policies by the government, and the government's macro-control signals can be transmitted and implemented more effectively through cooperative organizations. On the one hand, rural cooperative economic organizations, as representatives of farmers' interests, improve farmers' right to speak, and can actively engage in dialogue with government agencies to reflect farmers' opinions and demands, thus providing a reliable basis for the government to carry out its work; On the other hand, the government can also rely on rural cooperative economic organizations to effectively transfer the Party's agricultural policies to thousands of households, thus improving the effectiveness of government regulation of agriculture and rural economy.

(B) organizational model and performance analysis

From the organizational form, there are two main types of standardized new rural cooperative economic organizations. One is a membership-based agricultural cooperative, which refers to a cooperative economic organization that pays membership fees through farmers' associations, enjoys information, uses facilities, coordinates members' behaviors and protects members' interests. The main sources of funds for cooperatives are the membership fees paid by members, the purchase of facilities with membership fees, the provision of improved varieties and agricultural technical services. For example, the "Spring City" grape cooperative in Jurong County provides seedlings, unified fertilization, unified disease prevention, unified brand and unified packaging to farmers who join the cooperative. At present, the main varieties of cooperatives are Japanese Kyoho series, with an yield of 800- 1000 kg per mu, and all indicators have reached or exceeded international standards. At present, the products have been exported to Hongkong, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing and other regions and large and medium-sized cities, and the price per kilogram is 10- 14 yuan, which is more than double the price of ordinary grapes. Generally, this kind of cooperatives mainly produce local characteristic crops or cash crops, and their main function is to undertake things that one household cannot do. However, it is usually limited by geography, small scale, single source of funds and limited development.

The other is agricultural joint-stock cooperative economy or agricultural joint-stock cooperative. On the basis of the cooperative system, it absorbs and integrates some advantages of the joint-stock system, shares in the form of funds, objects and technology of natural persons or legal persons, operates together, extracts public funds to accumulate, and independently bears civil liabilities. Joint-stock cooperative economic organizations have the dual characteristics of cooperative system and shareholding system, but they are different from traditional cooperative system and ordinary shareholding system. There are at least three important differences between it and joint-stock enterprises: first, in the way of cooperation, it is not only the combination of funds, but also the combination of labor; Second, in the distribution of shares, it is a combination of labor and shares, and a few people are not allowed to hold shares; Third, in the way of distribution, both distribution according to work and dividend distribution according to shares are implemented. For example, the leisure and sightseeing agricultural joint-stock cooperative in Wuzhong District of Suzhou City mainly uses the rich local landscape tourism resources to set up the leisure and sightseeing agricultural joint-stock cooperative by discounting the land and fruit trees of fruit farmers, or on the basis of tea cooperation, it absorbs social capital and launches tea tasting and appreciation projects such as catering, accommodation and fishing to set up the leisure and sightseeing agricultural joint-stock cooperative. By the end of 2005, two such agricultural joint-stock cooperatives had been established in this district, with a total of 2,877 farmers. Compared with ordinary joint-stock enterprises, agricultural joint-stock cooperatives are closely related, which can establish a governance structure similar to that of enterprises and solve the limitation of insufficient funds in organizational scale. However, because it is not a standardized enterprise after all, it is difficult for ordinary shareholders to have a real right to speak, and voting rights often become a mere formality. Some stipulate that equity cannot be transferred, traded, mortgaged or even inherited, so it is an incomplete property right.

From the perspective of motivation, there are four main types of rural cooperative economic organizations:

1. "big family" initiated. This rural cooperative economic organization is gradually formed on the basis of the professional development of agricultural production, mainly focusing on some commodity cash crops, such as fruits, vegetables, aquaculture and so on. It is usually initiated by the backbone and technical experts of large producers, with the purpose of connecting local farmers engaged in the same crop production and resisting market risks. The main feature of this cooperation is the existence of a clear organizational core-large producers. When seeking a transaction, large producers will try their best to sign a trade contract that is conducive to protecting the legitimate rights and interests of producers from the perspective of maximizing their own profits, and other relatively small farmers will also benefit from the transaction. This kind of organization conforms to the characteristics of scattered residence and family kinship in rural areas of China, and its internal management and supervision rely on "geography" and "kinship", which is a large number of organizational forms at present. However, due to the lack of direct support from the government, this spontaneous economic cooperation organization of farmers has been affected in social and economic status. Various government departments, such as agriculture, industry and commerce, taxation, etc. , is not conducive to its development. In addition, its operation basically depends on and is controlled by big producers, which has high requirements and imperfect system.

2. "Leading enterprise" traction type. The main function of this kind of rural cooperative economic organization is to build a bridge between agricultural products processing enterprises and production farmers, and generally adopts the organizational form of "company+rural economic cooperative organization+farmers". Its characteristics are that the "dragon head" extends to domestic and foreign markets, and the "dragon tail" extends to thousands of households, making full use of the market advantages of leading enterprises to connect production, acquisition, processing, transportation and sales, forming a close production and management system with one-stop production and marketing and integration of agriculture, industry and commerce. This cooperative economic form promotes the rational flow and optimal combination of production factors and can fully realize the benefits of specialized division of labor. It is a widely used mode of production organization to realize agricultural industrialization at present. However, there are docking obstacles between leading enterprises and cooperative economic organizations, which are mainly manifested in the imperfect benefit distribution mechanism and the lack of integrity. "Leading enterprises" are usually processing and circulation enterprises, and the relationship with cooperative economic organizations is basically the relationship of buying and selling raw materials. Cooperative economic organizations can't share the profits outside the production link, and the interests of both sides are in a state of contradiction to some extent. Leading enterprises, cooperative economic organizations and members of cooperative economic organizations are cooperative relations. Driven by economic interests, whether it is leading enterprises, cooperative economic organizations or farmers, there may be credit crisis and "breach of contract" problems.

3. departmental support. The establishment of such rural cooperative economic organizations is mainly promoted by the economic and technical service departments such as the Agricultural Committee, the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, and the Association for Science and Technology, which are mainly distributed in some high-tech cash crop planting fields, such as medicinal materials, special fruits, and special breeding. The advantage of this organization is that it can get direct support from functional departments in terms of technical personnel, equipment, site and management. The defect is that there are often two "cores" of large producers and functional departments. How to deal with the relationship between them is the key to the healthy development of such economic cooperation organizations.

4. government promotion. This kind of rural cooperative economic organization is usually established by village committees and township governments in order to give full play to the advantages of local agricultural resources, promote agricultural industrialization and increase farmers' income. Obviously, the government plays an important role in promoting this process. Cooperative economic organizations are the product of the combination of "government and people" and are inextricably linked with the government. Cooperative economic organizations are the intermediary and bridge to implement the government's agricultural economic policies and rural management. This kind of organization has certain advantages in political and economic status, but it has a strong administrative color, and the economic functions of government departments are strengthened, so it is easy to ignore the law of cooperative economic development. Once the government's policy changes, the cooperative organization will be in trouble. In addition, it is not excluded that local governments set up cooperative economic organizations against the wishes of farmers in order to highlight their political achievements.