This book is a detailed analysis of the evolution of state-sponsored agricultural co-operativism in Peru, an Andean country with high levels of land concentration and widespread rural poverty. Most Peruvian agricultural co-operatives were organized during the military populist government of Velasco Alvarado which, after radical land reform, transformed expropriated estates into co-operatives. From the start, these projects became subject to multiple pressures that ranged from unfavourable government economic policies -- designed to promote import-substitution industrialization at the expense of the agricultural sector -- to the growth of the co-operative bureaucracy and the deterioration of labour discipline.
A shift toward market-oriented economic strategies after the fall of the Velasco government aggravated the co-operatives' difficulties. Stabilization programs implemented by Velasco's successor, General Mortales Bermudez, and liberalization of the national economy by the civilian government of Belaunder Terry dealt a severe blow to Peru's co-operative agriculture. The ensuing crisis gave rise to political mobilization against the market-oriented economic policies. However, the effectiveness of this movement was undermined by a trend toward dissolution of agricultural co-operatives by many members who turned to individual/private agriculture as a solution. Korovkin examines not only the diverging responses of co-operative memebers to the crisis, but also the external policy-related and internal organizational causes behind it.
The focus of this book is on the cotton-growing sector that constituted the back-bone of the state-sponsored co-operative movement in Peru. The analysis of the national dynamic is complemented by case studies of three cotton estates converted into agricultural production co-operatives. One of these proved reasonably successful, while the other two experienced serious economic difficulties, looking for their solution in either poitical mobilization against the government's economic policies or in the shift to individual/private agriculture. The comparative analysis of their experiences provides valuable insights into the nature of organizational problems confronting Peru's co-operative movement.
Korovkin also places the discussion of the Peruvian co-operative experience in a broader historical and theoretical perspective, focusing on the changing nature of social alliances and economic strategies during the populist and post-populist periods.
