Expert evaluation of the priorities and problems in the activity of the producer organizations

S. Todorova, E. Rancheva

Abstract: The need of stronger competitive positions of agri-producers in Bulgaria has led to the establishment of agriproducer organizations, a way to overcome the barrier of agricultural production marketing. The object of this article is to view the production organizations in the “Fruit and Vegetables” sector in Bulgaria and on the basis of investigating their activity to evaluate the significance of the factors (priorities) to incorporate agriproducers to the organization of producers (POs) of Fruit and Vegetables in the country, as well as the problems of the collective trade activity. In the current article the basic factors are examined concerning their inclusion in collective activity in relevance to production realization, as well as the problems that lead to their disintegration after their good start. The interviewed producers evaluated the significance of the factors defining their membership in POs with the assistance of ranking scale. The coherence of the gathered assessments is evaluated with the help of the coefficient of variation and with the assistance of the coefficient of concordance. The significance is measured by rank correlation coefficient. The study shows that an active, homogenous group of evaluations with high ratio of coherence is formed, and the rest of the opinions, which are about 15-20% are significantly diversified. In this case it is noted, that the evaluations of the minority of the interviewed, which are much diversified, are as a result of their lesser competence and can be ignored. The values of the coefficient of variation are interchange in the range of 9.452% to 55.773%, which shows significant variation in the opinions for the separate factors, in other words – lack of coherence. Arranging the factors in accordance to their significance, the interviewed are leaded by different criteria. With high priority for the interviewed are the following factors: improvement of the economical state in long term perspective and option for integrating better production technology. With essential significance for the producers are the difficulties in relevance to achieving the needed quality of production, the co-ordination with other people (lack of confidence), the necessity of implementing technological regime/administration. The calculated value of the coefficient of concordance is 0.091 and shows low rate of agreement. The computed value of the test statistic c x2 = 31.122 surpasses the critical point for α=0.01 and α=0.05, which is an indicator of non-random character in the lack of agreement among the interviewed. The values of the coefficient of variation change in the range from 28.419% to 54.525%, which again shows lack of agreement in the opinions. The generalized evaluations define priority significance of the problems: lack of security in the benefits of the membership and lack of confidence of success. The examination findings substantiated the need of urging forward the idea of setting up producer organizations. On one hand, due to their integrated actions in marketing, agriproducers obtained different benefits that were not likely to be achieved in case of lacking coordination. On the other hand, Bulgarian agri-producers were able to overcome many psychological barriers resulting from their former experience in the ex-socialist type cooperative farms.

Keywords: agri-producer organizations; coefficient of concordance; coefficient of variation; fruit and vegetable producers; significance of the factors

Date published: 2018-02-12