Deputy Chairman of MCCI Committee for enterprise development in agriculture and the General Director of "Petrova Five Consulting" Marina Petrova took part in the round table "Cooperation for joint use of machinery for forage harvesting. The experience of Russia, Germany and Denmark" spoke about why cooperation is a great way of uniting farmers and a real opportunity for competition with the leading enterprises, did not take root in the Russian dairy industry.

Currently in Russia there are some problems that hinder the development of societies. First and foremost is the imperfection of legislation in the field of cooperation. Also important is the "crisis of confidence": it often happens that business in Russia is not protected against default, and cooperation is a partnership and a system of reasonable compromises. In addition, there are infrastructure complexity – life and work in the countryside are aggravated by the lack of preschool and school education, health care and transportation. And, of course, one of the main problems is the lack of regular and predictable state support.

If you look at the development of cooperation on the global dairy market, we will see that of the top 20 dairy companies, producing 25% of world milk production, 11 are cooperatives. Cooperatives have many advantages, and actively develop throughout the world, primarily, due to the fact that allow them to compete with large agricultural holdings. Competitive and successful in the global market of large cooperatives making a number of features, among which: access to analytical data; development of new products, brands and their introduction to new markets; exports competitive, modern and safe products, adapted to foreign markets. A Prime example of successful co-op-giant is a vertically integrated transnational co-operative Fonterra, which unites more than 10 000 farmers-stockholders.

"Development cooperation will open for the Russian dairy industry new opportunities, reducing the gap between large enterprises and small farmers, - said Marina Petrova. – It will allow farmers to compete with large agricultural holdings not only in narrow segments at the expense of identity, but also in major world markets".