Identifying and Developing Appropriate Strategies for Iran's Agricultural Production Cooperatives

This study used the SWOT matrix in order to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of agricultural production cooperatives in Iran. SWOT matrix provided appropriate strategies so that the goals as well as objectives of the agricultural production cooperatives could be accomplished. Two-stage cluster random sampling method used to determine Sample size using a two-stage cluster random sampling method determined as follows: In the first stage, each of the three weather climates at three different provinces were selected. In the second stage, within each Province, 10 production cooperatives were randomly selected. Finally, 360 specialists and scholars in these cooperatives were random selected and interviewed. The results showed the most important strength and weakness of cooperatives was improvement in the level of management and the lack of strong leadership in cooperatives, respectively. The most important opportunities and threats faced the cooperatives were government support from the cooperative sector and insufficient and unclear governmental policies and regulations regarding the development and expansion of agricultural cooperatives, respectively. Also the findings revealed that the best strategy for agricultural production cooperatives was competitive strategy which includes promoting the production level and boosting farmer's income in order to reduce economic dependence on the government, organizing small enterprises and integrating business activities.