The role of agricultural co-operatives in promoting sustainable development in rural areas: A systematic literature review

Agricultural co-operatives are an important vehicle for addressing a range of issues in rural areas. However, most of the existing literature only addresses the contributions of agricultural co-operatives to rural development in a single dimension - economic, environmental, or social. Comprehensive and holistic reviews of the literature on the contributions of agricultural co-operatives to rural sustainable development are notably scarce. We respond to this gap using a systematic literature review through which we analyse 43 articles published from 1995 to December 2024. Research in this area is relatively new and rapidly developing, but the trends across regions are uneven. Scholars from developed countries tend to focus on the transformation of agricultural co-operatives and how they can evolve into models for promoting social development, while scholars from developing countries are more concerned with the role of agricultural co-operatives in poverty alleviation and green production. We also found that external public policies are important for the fulfilment of the role of agricultural co-operatives. Additionally, another area that requires further research is the trade-off between economic sustainability, environmental sustainability, and social sustainability in agricultural co-operatives in rural areas, as well as whether these goals are compatible, complementary, or in competition with each other.