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Holding All the Cards? Quality Management by Cooperatives in a Moroccan Dairy Value Chain

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Abstract

Producer organizations are often said to have the potential to help farmers meet the increasing quality requirements of agricultural value chains. However, the external environment may influence producer organizations’ room for maneuver in implementing effective quality management. This article assesses the influence of the relations between producer organizations, producers and other actors in the value chain on the capacity of producer organizations to implement quality management. Our analysis focuses on four Moroccan milk collection cooperatives that started using a milk analyzer with the aim of eliminating cheating by their suppliers. The cooperatives’ room for maneuver in improving quality management was limited by the presence of competitors for milk collection and by the agro-industry’s lack of transparency in the way its own quality controls were applied. Future studies on how producer organizations can meet the quality challenge should include the strategies of other actors in the value chain in their analyses.

Abstract

Il est souvent dit des organisations de producteurs qu’elles ont le potentiel d’aider les agriculteurs à répondre aux exigences de qualité croissantes dans les filières agricoles. Cependant, l’environnement externe peut influencer la marge de manoeuvre qu’ont ces organisations de producteurs pour mettre en oeuvre une gestion efficace de la qualité. Cet article évalue l’influence qu’ont les relations entre les organisations de producteurs, les producteurs et d’autres acteurs d’une filière, sur la capacité des organisations de producteurs à mettre en oeuvre une démarche de gestion de qualité. Notre analyse porte sur quatre coopératives marocaines de collecte de lait qui ont commencé à utiliser un analyseur de qualité du lait en vue d’éliminer des comportements de triche chez les agriculteurs fournissant les coopératives. La marge de manoeuvre des coopératives pour l’amélioration de la gestion de la qualité est limitée par la présence de concurrents pour la collecte du lait ainsi que par le manque de transparence de l’industrie agro-alimentaire dans la manière dont elle applique ses propres contrôles de qualité. De futures études sur la manière dont les organisations de producteurs peuvent répondre au défi de la qualité devraient inclure dans leurs analyses les stratégies d’autres acteurs de la filière.

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Notes

  1. In May 2012, the Moroccan dirham (DH) was valued at 1 DH=€0.09.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Pierre-Yves Le Gal and two anonymous referees for their comments and advice.

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Correspondence to Nicolas Faysse.

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Faysse, N., Simon, C. Holding All the Cards? Quality Management by Cooperatives in a Moroccan Dairy Value Chain. Eur J Dev Res 27, 140–155 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejdr.2014.23

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