1 COOPERATIVE INSTITUTIONS AND HORTICULTURAL EXPORTS IN NEW TRADE REGIME

Genesis of Co-operatives and their Development: Government of India initiated rural co-operatives chiefly to combat the menace of indebtedness and exploitation of farmers by the money lenders owing to the lack of institutional credit available to them.1 Initially, these cooperatives were formed at the primary level i.e. village level. These credit institutions were soon found to be beset with their own problems such as poor economies of scale, shortage of funds, lack of guidance on use of funds and the absence of support mechanism in propelling the quantity and quality of services available to their members. These problems also had their echo in the reports submitted by the earlier committees appointed by the Government of India to study the efficacy of the cooperative movement in the country.2 And, thus, a three-tier structure for credit cooperatives emerged in India with an aim to strengthen the primaries. The advent of time also saw institutions of many expert committees entrusted with the task of improving the credit flow from institutional financial sources.3 These committees undertook appropriate measures from time to time to strengthen the cooperatives by increasing the flow of institutional rural credit to them. However, some of the committee