Organizational Maturity of Family Farming Cooperatives and Associations: A Short-Term Assessment of Brazil’s Mais Gestão Program

Family farming cooperatives and associations play a key role in rural development but often face managerial constraints that limit their organizational performance and access to institutional markets. This study assessed short-term changes in organizational maturity among organizations participating in Brazil’s Mais Gestão Program. A quasi-experimental pre–post design without a control group was adopted using paired observations from 42 organizations assessed at baseline (April 2025) and follow-up (November 2025). Organizational maturity was measured using the official Mais Gestão diagnostic instrument, which comprises six managerial dimensions. Descriptive statistics, paired-samples t-tests, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), ANOVA, and K-means Cluster Analysis were performed. Overall organizational maturity improved between assessments, particularly in governance, people management, financial management, commercial management, and production processes. PCA showed that the first principal component explained 65.48% of the total variance, supporting the view of organizational maturity as a multidimensional construct. These findings suggest that institutional support initiatives may strengthen managerial capacities and improve organizational readiness to access public policy opportunities.