What are the Key Factors Influencing the Formation Offarmers' Cooperatives? ——Empirical Analysis from 307 Villages in 25 Provinces of China
Wen, Hua

Abstract
In China's agricultural history, small farmers have been the main agricultural business entities for thousands of years. Although China's agricultural business model was replaced by the collective business model during the planned economy period, the traditional farming techniques and methods have not been changed fundamentally. This is why China's agriculture has been stagnated for a long time. In order to break through the plight of “small farmers”, since the late 1990s,the Chinese government has begun to cultivate new types of agricultural business entities. Among them, the farmercooperatives have received the widest attention. However, in practice, the formation of Chinese farmer cooperatives has encountered problems of low enthusiasm for farmers' participation and "false participation". In this regard, this paper analyzes the key influencing factors for the formation of farmer cooperatives from the perspective of farmers, and uses the data of 307 villages in 25 provinces of the CLDS (Chinese Labor force Dynamic Survey) to quantitatively analyze the impact of the nature of planted product and trust on the formation of cooperatives. The conclusions of this paper are as follows: (1) If the main planted crop is normal grain, the formation of cooperatives is affected by the scale of cultivated land; (2) If the main planted crop is commercial crops, the formation of cooperatives is affected by product characteristics;(3) Driven by interests, trust has a positive effect on the formation of cooperatives Therefore, this article proposes that to promote the development of famer cooperatives, full consideration should be given to the nature of the farmer's business products, and the implementation of agricultural organizational management countermeasures in light of local social trust.

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