National agricultural cooperative federation, an appraisal

NACF should not attempt to expand proportional to the need for input and product market services over the next 1 1/2 decades. Rather the target should be to retain its present non-government intrusted product market share (about 11%) and to move from 80% of the modern input supply market to less than half in 1985. Private sector competition should be encouraged. Projections in Chapter IV indicate that NACF Primary cooperatives in the aggregate are capable of almost doubling their product marketing and input supply volume with existing resources and personnel. The NACF is currently seeking funds to increase its role in programming and financing major capital investments in agricultural production and marketing. This represents essentially a new role for the organization. This kind of activity should basically be left to the private sector and the AFDC. In any case, NACF should not undertake such activity without a very clear assessment of the organization"s capacity to implement the program and at the same time improve its capacity to provide credit, farm supply, and marketing services to agriculture.