Research Trends in Agricultural Marketing Cooperatives: A Bibliometric Review

Abstract

In the last decade, agricultural cooperatives have become increasingly popular in the food industry. This paper aims to shed light on the extensive literature on agricultural cooperatives. Design/Methodology/Approach: In conducting this review, we applied the bibliometric review method. Initially, we retrieved 1249 bibliometric data from the Scopus database, which were reduced to 364 documents after applying the PRISMA guidelines. The data were filtered using the following keywords: “agricultural marketing cooperatives”, “agricultural marketing societies”, “performance”, “value chains”, and “supply chains”. Findings: According to our findings, the present research is primarily focused on smallholders, sustainability, and supply chain management topics. We found that current research lacks an understanding of why agricultural cooperatives fail in terms of finances, investments, and implementation of strategies. We conclude that agricultural marketing cooperatives in their current state and legal form might not be flexible enough to compete in markets due to global and sustainability concerns. Finally, we provide a practical roadmap for researchers, investors, policymakers, and non-profits. Limitations: The main limitation of our review is that it contains only studies found in Scopus and examines only the English language literature. Originality/Value: Bibliometric analyses focused on agriculture cooperatives are scarce, and this paper provides a broader perspective of the existing literature. Moreover, it identifies research gaps and current trends in the field while providing a detailed description of how agricultural cooperative research has evolved over time.