Study Of Farmers' Cooperatives In China Legal System

With China's accession to WTO, agriculture has no choice but to step into the era of international competition.Because of the low level of agricultural organization,the contradiction between "small production" and "big marke" has become increasingly prominent,and become the fundamental contradiction in China's agricultural economic development. International experiences show that the way to ease the contradiction between small farmers and the big market is to develop farmer cooperativesin agricultural production,circulation and service areas.Farmer cooperatives can improve farmers' organizational level.Developing farmer cooperatives has become the international consensus in the revitalization of the agricultural economy.In China,farmer cooperatives are newly developed,but they have been widespread concerned by government and public as transformation of agricultural industrialization,and as a key to solve the "Three Rural Issues".The current legal research of farmer cooperatives in China is relatively backward. Insufficient supply of the legal system for farmer cooperatives has become one of the biggest obstacles. In this article, the anthor analyzed the basic theory of farmer cooperatives by describing the ideas and practice of cooperatives, clarifing the concept of farmer cooperatives and discussing the economic, social and cultural roots of them. On this basis, the researcher explored the legal status of farmer cooperatives.According to the current situation of farmer cooperatives,the researcher anylayzed their problems and drawed on international experiences.On this basis,the researcher made three specific recommendations, which included improving legislation, strengthening the supervision of farmer cooperatives,and constructing farmer cooperatives culture.Farmer cooperatives have a profound theoretical basis. Thoughts are made from the early utopian socialists to modern cooperatives economists. Farmer cooperatives are the fastest growing and the most widely spread type of cooperatives. Farmer cooperatives are economic organizations of agricultural practitioners in order to seek, maintain and improve their common interests. Farmer cooperatives have deep economic, social and cultural roots. The prevalence of farmer cooperatives is closely related with the inferiority of agriculture. Farmer cooperatives are checks and balances in commodity economy.They are the implementation of the modern state and an important form to carry out gricultural protection policy.Farmers are the biggest vulnerable group, Farmer cooperatives are the inevitable result of economic integration. Emergence and development of farmer cooperatives also have deep cultural roots, including the individual freedom spirit of humanism, the western tradition of civil society and the universalism culture of trust.The legal properties of farmer cooperatives are a long debated question. According to the classification of the traditional civil law, farmer cooperatives should be classified in the non-profit corporation aggregate.China's "Civil Law"does not use the traditional classification of civil law. Farmer cooperatives can not integrate into our legal system. The meaning of for-profit organizations should be accurately grasped. Based on this, we should change the traditional concept of equating enterprise legal person to the for-profit organization. The broad concept of enterprise legal person should be adopted. The enterprise legal person not only include for-profit company, but also include non-profit farmer cooperatives. As enterprise legal person, compared with other business organizations,farmer cooperatives are owned by farmers and provide services for farmers with the dual economic and social attributes.Farmer cooperatives distribute surplus in accordance with turnover,and implement democratic control system of members in order to protect subjectivity of farmers.Farmer cooperatives are typical autonomous organizations.In China, farmer cooperatives in our modern sense originated in Jiangsu and Zhejiang area in the 1980s.They are an independent choice made by the vast number of farmers to adapt to development of market economy. Following the household contract responsibility system, the development of township enterprises,and the industrial management of agriculture,farmer cooperatives are the major institutional innovation in rural areas in China.With the promulgation of Chinese Specialized Farmer Cooperatives Act in October 2006,farmer cooperatives entered the orbit of the rule of law.In the government's support and promotion, farmer cooperatives develop rapidly in recent years,and show an unprecedented vigor and vitality.However,the farmer cooperatives are still in early stage of development in China.they are facing many challenges. On the whole, their development is uneven between regions and industries with small scale and weak strength.From an external point of view, the relevant laws and regulations are incomplete, government supervision and managementa re not in place,financial support policy is not sound,fund shortage problem is prevailing,and false cooperatives are flooding.Internally,farmer cooperatives are not standardized,and membership heterogeneity are severe in many farmercooperatives.With the lack of democratic management and supervision mechanisms, farmer cooperatives can not truly represent the interests of farmers.Therefore,it has been urgent to regulate the development of farmer cooperatives in China.Development of the international farmer cooperatives provides reference and inspiration for farmer cooperatives in China.Since the 1980s,along with the industrialization and marketization of agriculture, the traditional farmer cooperatives have been unable to adapt to the increasing competition in the market of agricultural. Globally, the traditional cooperative increasingly dicline.Facing the changed external environment, the Western developed countries take a series of response measures, the most notable one is the emergence of Stock-Cooperatives in Europe and the New Generation Cooperatives in North America. These new types of farmers cooperative show a clear tendency of corporatization. They are abandoned the traditional farmer cooperatives with insistence on their essence nature. Farmer cooperatives are more diversified than other market players in the economic organization. Throughout the world, there are three typical development models of farmer cooperatives:the European cooperative mode represented by France, the Americas cooperative mode represented by the United States, the Asian cooperative mode represented by Japan. A lot of useful experiences and enlightenment can be gained from the international development of farmer cooperatives. we shoula adhere to the essential characteristics of farmer cooperatives and focus on innovation. We should choose the development model according to our own national conditions.We should actively promote the alliance among farmers cooperatives. We shoula handle the relationship between the government and farmers cooperatives. Based on the problems exposed above, it has been unavoidable to improve the legal system of farmer cooperatives. According to our country's legal practice, it is critical to improve the capital system, the self-government rules and the right remedy for farmers in terms of legislation.Membership heterogeneity is the core issue of farmer cooperatives in China. Under the condition of membership heterogeneity, we should strengthen supervision of the farmers cooperatives leaded by companies, improve the internal governance structure,and perfect capital support policy for farmer cooperatives.We should deal with relationship between the development and standardization of farmer cooperatives to form a farmer-led model of development gradually. The establishment of farmer cooperatives legal system must have appropriate cultural soil.In the construction of farmer cooperatives culture of China, we must derive domestic and international advanced farmer cooperatives culture.We should combine collectivism spirit and individualism idea.We should pay attention to inherit traditional culture and strengthen cooperatives education to form an inclusive farmer cooperatives cultural system.