Strategic Risk and Collective Action in Agriculture

Abstract

Collective action is advocated as a solution to common challenges encountered by agricultural producers, including accessing new markets, sharing capital investment expenses, and negotiating with companies both upstream and downstream in the supply chain (Bouamra-Mechemache and Zago 2015). Collective action is also proposed as a solution to problems related to externalities and public goods within the agricultural community and between farmers and other economic actors (Ayer 1997). Recently, there is growing interest in utilizing collective agri-environmental strategies to efficiently deliver public goods, such as biodiversity, water availability and quality, resilience against fires and flooding, storage of carbon to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and enhanced agricultural landscapes (Vanni 2014).