Analysis of the competitiveness as sustainability and efficiency element in the agricultural cooperatives

The competitiveness has been defined as the possibility to maintain market shares in the internal and external sectors with a level of given benefit. In the last decade this concept has been applied to the different economic sectors. Particularly in the agricultural sector this approach tries to increase the crops productivity and improve the producers' standard of life, among others. Through the agricultural cooperatives, organizations that born as a producers' initiative to respond to the necessities that the market logic does not solve, is tried to increase the yield of this activity and to improve the rural standard of life in anyone of their aspects. In this sense, the intention of this article is to analyze the competitive capacities of agricultural cooperatives as element of sustainability within the regional development policies, taking into account the improvement of market and trade strategies, financing policies, technology and investigation, with the purpose to eliminate obstacles that could inhibit the competitive potential, as well as to stimulate the productivity and reconversion of this sector in the external competitive strategy.