June 1965 and the end of 1967, and which has paid-in capital and reserves equivalent to US$ 2.5 million. The bank has been supported entirely by the Argentine cooperative movement.

In August 1968, SIDEFCOOP, in collaboration with the Organization of American States, the National Cooperative Institute of Peru and CLUSA, held the first Latin American seminar of cooperative banks. In October of that year Colombia organized a bank that will concentrate mainly on supporting rural cooperatives. Groups in the Dominican Republic, Panama, Peru and at least two other Latin American countries are eager to move in the same direction.

Information on the operation of five agricultural cooperative banks organized since 1961 is given in Table 2.

3. Agricultural Cooperatives

The institutional development of agriculture depends to a large extent on the strength of various types of farmers' associations. In Latin America, one way in which rural progress can be appreciated is by observing the growth of these associations, and especially the growth of farmers' cooperatives. During the past decade, significant advances have been made in the formation and impact of agricultural cooperatives in most Latin American countries. Part of this improvement is associated with a general growth in the overall cooperative movement as an integral part of socio-economic development.

Up to the 1950's, the agricultural cooperative movement had included mainly the larger, more commercial farmers, and had been restricted in general to the southern part of South America, i.e., Southern Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and parts of Chile. In more recent years however, the movement has spread elsewhere and is gradually extending to the poorer campesino elements in the Andean countries, Central America and elsewhere.

Agricultural cooperatives are the most numerous type of such organizations, followed by consumer cooperatives and credit unions. As shown in Table 3, the number of cooperatives in Latin America has increased at the rate of 57 per cent since 1962, while membership has grown by 66 per cent. Bolivia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Peru and Venezuela have experienced an increase in membership since 1962 of more than 200 per cent. Guatemala has experienced an increase of more than 600 per cent, and the Dominican Republic of more than 500 per cent. These exceptionally high rates of increase can be partly explained by the very small number of members in the 1962 base year. On the other hand, Chile, El Salvador, Mexico and Nicaragua, with formerly extensive programs, experienced growth rates of about 40 per cent from 1962 to 1968.

Argentina and Brazil account for more than two-thirds of all agricultural cooperatives and over 80 per cent of total membershiip of cooperatives registered in Latin America. Brazil, with 2,500, has the largest number of legally registered agricultural cooperatives and almost 60 per cent, or 925,000, of all cooperative members in Latin America. The growth in number and membership of the Brazilian agricultural cooperatives during 1960-1968 has been continuous. Processing activities, such as dairy cooperatives with 53,000 members and sugar cane cooperatives with 5,000 members, have made an important contribution to agricultural growth in Brazil, as have more than 60 agricultural credit cooperatives with over 50,000 members.

Although Argentina accounted for 23 per cent of all agricultural cooperatives registered in Latin America in 1968, the absolute number of coop

1 Barbados, Ecuador, Haiti, Trinidad-Tobago and Venezuela not included for lack

of data.

'Per cent change 1964-1968.

Per cent change 1961-1968.

Excludes Colombia.

*Per cent change 1960-1966.

Source: Summary, Economic and Social Indicators, 18 Latin American Countries1961-1968; Agency for International Development, June 1969.

eratives declined between 1960 and 1968. Membership increased by 10 per cent during 1960-1965, but fell to 455,000 in 1966 and remained at that level through 1968. Dairy cooperatives with processing facilities for making butter and cheese and 600 grain marketing cooperatives with 30,000 members, that market 40 per cent of the national grain output, have been of great importance to Argentina.

Prior to 1963 neither Peru nor the Dominican Republic officially registered agricultural cooperatives. Since then, Peru has experienced steady

growth in its agricultural cooperative program and the Dominican Republic has organized 48 cooperatives with more than 5,000 members.

The highest sustained growth rate has taken place in Bolivia, where membership has increased to over 11,000 members in 244 cooperatives, from 700 members in eleven cooperatives in 1960. The number of agricultural cooperatives and membership has also grown steadily in the 19601968 period in Central America, including Panama, and in Uruguay and Paraguay.

By 1968, following an initial period of land tenure reform which went hand-in-hand with cooperative organization, Chile had more than 40,000 registered members, an increase of over 700 per cent since 1961.

The real strength of the cooperative movement in Latin America is difficult to estimate, and figures cited refer to officially registered societies under specific laws. In some countries these include "paper" cooperatives and government-managed enterprises which meet legal requisites, but hardly function as cooperatives. On the other hand, there are many other types of agricultural organizations and groupings which, while not included in official statistics, do function well as cooperatives. For example, many of the Mexican ejidos, and credit societies based on the ejidos have strong cooperative features, as do new types of peasant associations created on the basis of recent agrarian reforms. If these quasi-cooperatives were included, the growth of the movement would be even greater.

Honduras presents a more recent example of progress. A special agricultural cooperative program was initiated in 1967 and in one year membership rose from 323 to 1,249. The cooperatives obtained almost US$ 100,000 in production credit, introduced and used new tools and techniques on 4,200 acres of land which increased grain production by as much as 100 per cent over traditional yields, and by means of new storage and conservation practices increased prices obtained by their members by 20 per cent. Because of these cooperatives, members saved more than US$ 12,000 in the purchase of farm supplies and experienced an estimated increase in per capita income of US$ 140 in 18 months.

One of the most successful cooperative programs is Costa Rica's, where 218 cooperatives were registered as of July 1, 1969. Nineteen of these are coffee cooperatives affiliated with the Federation of Coffee Cooperatives. By means of accurate market reporting and better services, these cooperatives have substantially increased the income of their 6,500 members, almost all of them small and medium-sized producers. The Federation's capacity to market coffee has grown from 4,200 tons in the 19641965 crop year to 13,000 tons in 1968-1969, and is expected to increase by another 2,000 tons in 1969-1970. In addition, the Federation has extended US$ 470,000 from its own funds to its members as short-term loan advancements against their coffee crops.