Agricultural cooperatives a development issue

With a view to contributing to the fight against unemployment and illegal emigration the National Fund for the Promotion of Youth has set up the National Project for Social Cohesion and Youth Employment. Twenty-three farms have been set up through the Youth in Farm component including the Fongolimbi farm. The consistency of the investments made has led to reflection on the chances of such an enterprise to develop and remain viable in its environment. To do this it was necessary to analyze the socio-economic institutional and organizational environment of the Fongolimbi agricultural cooperative and to study the opportunity cost of such an investment. To this end a number of avenues for reflection were identified. Firstly it was necessary to determine the extent to which the socio-economic environment has a positive influence on the performance of the cooperative. In a second step the effect of the institutional and organizational framework on the viability of the structure was established. Finally a comparison was made between the level of funding and the expected socio-economic output of the farm.