Safety in small numbers: Local strategies for survival and growth in Romania and the Kyrgyz Republic
通过比较吉尔吉斯斯坦和罗马尼亚东北部贫困农村的农户，研究了农业合作的各种形式，发现中小型合作能在信息不完全和市场不完善时提供可预测的生计策略，对扶贫和农业增长有积极作用。
Abstract Using a comparative study of farm households from poor rural communities in Kyrgyzstan and north-east Romania this paper explores the intricacies of a variety of forms of cooperation in agriculture. The findings highlight the safety net, labour specialisation, asset-pooling and service delivery functions of different groups that enable rural livelihoods to, at times, cope and at times improve in situations of imperfect information, sluggish labour and land markets, and constrained capital markets. The research presented here indicates that small to medium forms of cooperation provide the rural poor with predictable livelihood strategies under conditions of uncertainty. Specifically, cooperative action, in the form of groups, substitutes for imperfect markets. Despite the push for decollectivisation and privatisation across transition countries there remains a place for encouraging group initiatives, at least for the medium term, on the grounds of both poverty alleviation and agricultural growth.