A Historical Study on the Amalgamation of Agricultural Co-operatives

With Emphasis on the Change of Policies and their Backgrounds

Abstract

The main object of this paper is to analyze, being connected with the historical backgrounds and goals of agricultural co-operatives in each period, the historical change of the schemes, which have been mainly proposed by the National Federation of Agricultural Co-operatives (ZENCHU), to promote the amalgamation of agricultural co-opratives.
The major results are as follows:
(1) The first scheme to promote the amalgamation was established in 1961 by the leadership of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (NORINSHOU). The Federation was behind in a responce of this issue.
(2) It was in the early 1970's when the Federation had decided to promote the amalgamation at the national level. As a result, many amalgamated agricultural co-operatives, which were expanded in the size of organization and that of activity, had emerged.
(3) However, in the latter half of the 1970's, the emphasis moved toward standardizing the size of co-operatives. It was considered that the Federation had to modify the basic direction of activity in accordance with economic growth at a slow speed. Then we observed the stagnant tendancy of the amalgamation.
(4) Since the latter half of the 1980's, the Federation has been promoting the amalgamation to deal with new circumstances, which surround co-operatives, for example the severe competition in financial market.
(5) According to the historical analysis, we can suggest some important issues of the amalgamation of agricultural co-operatives as follows: 1. the amalgamation maintained and strengthened the organization of co-operatives, 2. the amalgamation issue was placed on the well-established position in connection with various functions of cooperatives, and 3. the amalgamating sheme was equipped with the support by administrative office.