摘要：Few agricultural marketing cooperatives have nationally prominent brand names.
Instead, they tend to concentrate in commodity-oriented markets, which can be
attributed to the cooperative principlesuser-benefit, user-financed and
user-control. However, these structural disadvantages can be overcome. Due to
the user-benefit principle, cooperatives often have seasonal product
availability and/or limited product lines; they also suffer from the horizon
problem, lacking the structure to provide long-term returns to members who
invest in brand building. The user-benefit principle can be converted into an
advantage by using the cooperative identity as a marketing strategy, and the
horizon problem can be remedied by implementing a delivery-rights system.
Cooperatives' limited access to capital is attributable to the user-financed
principle. Joint ventures, legislative reforms to expand cooperatives' sources
of equity capital and preferred stock offerings can be used to overcome this
constraint. The homogeneous nature of cooperative boards is attributable to the
user-control principle; it gives rise to the principal-agent problem. Forming
subsidiaries or joint ventures to market branded products can remedy this
situation, with the boards composed of individuals with expertise in branded
products.
