Producer Groups in the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic and Republic of Poland and their Market Share Potential

Collective cooperation in rural areas is not just a phenomenon of the past. Marketing cooperatives in the agricultural sector are hotly debated worldwide. The main benefits of collective actions can include the benefits of size, sharing of knowledge and information, effective solution of local problems. To support collective actions the governments of all these three countries had decided to support the creation of marketing organisations after joining the EU. For that reason they provided public financial support for newly established producer groups and the allocation was realized on the basis of the Rural Development Programme with the aim, among others, to increase market share potential of individual farmers. Based on data obtained from paying agencies, it can be concluded that there were not established a large number of market-significant groups within individual states and commodity groups. Only in Slovakia, under the first programming period, there were groups with a significant share, i.e. a share above 15%. In the next period, as in other countries, only cooperatives with a low share on the relevant market were supported. At the same time it was found that the rate of sales of active entities did not change significantly between Czech and Slovak entities. In most cases, sales are in the range of (sic) 1-5 million. In Poland, cooperatives with revenues above (sic) I million/year were established but there was also registered a significant number of cooperatives with sales below El million.