West Bengal contributes nearly 20% of the nation's 1.8 million tonne pineapple, with three districts in North Bengal (Northern region of West Bengal)-Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, and Uttar (North) Dinajpur-contributing around 80% of both pineapple cultivation area and production in the state. Challenges such as rising agricultural input costs, fluctuating prices of perishable agricultural goods, inadequate market infrastructure, and distressed sales by small farmers pose significant hurdles to the sector's sustainability. Horizontal and vertical integration strategies aim to optimize resource utilization and returns for growers, mitigating market uncertainties and ensuring product consistency. Collective farming emerges as a solution to help small and marginal farmers overcome credit limitations, adopt advanced technologies, and enhance their produce's value while benefiting from economies of scale and cost reductions. A cooperative business model presents an alternative to independent arrangements, promoting efficiency and enabling coordinated supply from dispersed producers. This study explores how collective farming and a hybrid cooperative business approach can address horizontal and vertical coordination challenges, focusing on pineapple growers in North Bengal.
Ansari et al. (Mon,) studied this question.