Cooperation in Italy: the transition from Solidarity to Agribusiness

The aim of this article is to examine some of today's problems of agricultural cooperatives in Italy. The growing agribusiness competition is stimulating a debate about the compatibility between the historical principles of cooperative and the economie efficiency requested for their survival. The need to achieve high quality economie performance brings about cooperative organizational patterns characterized by staff control over members, who progressively lose their autonomy of decision. The acceptance of this model is determined by two reasons: the interest in members' for cooperative organizations capable of assuring them consistent returns from the agri-business activities and the need to eliminate the inefficiencies created by the competition between Catholic (righi or white) and Communist (left or red) cooperatives. The present economie crisis of many right and left cooperatives is the result of the ideological division that has influenced the cooperative movement and gradually drove them to be heavily dependent on political parties. Now the agricultural cooperatives are trying to improve their performances by in-troducing models of managerial organization.