Agricultural cooperative firms: budgetary adjustments and analysis of credit access applying scoring systems

Cooperatives are one of the most important types of companies in the agricultural sector. Cooperatives allow overcoming the limitations of the fragmentation of agricultural property, increasing the level of production of small-sized farms and selling the product so that it reaches a sufficient critical mass. Moreover, cooperatives are often characterized by undercapitalization and even difficult credit access because banks conduct their analysis applying rating systems that do not take into account the typicality of the cooperative budget. To assess this topic, in this article, an analysis has been conducted on a sample of 100 cooperatives, making adjustments to the annual budget in order to consider the typicality of their annual accounts. The results of the analysis show that suggested adjustments allow a more correct expression of the economic results and capital adequacy of the cooperative and that the results, expressed in terms of scoring, are higher than that achieved by a traditional analysis. This methodology could improve the credit access capacity for agricultural cooperatives and then reduce financial constraints, particularly in developing countries.