ADVANTAGES AND CONSTRAINTS OF INNOVATIVE BUSINESS MODELS FOR FOOD SECURITY: CASE STUDY IN SMOLYAN DISTRICT, BULGARIA

The market access has been often defined as a factor having the strongest impact on agriculturalsector activity. Its importance is particularly critical for the small farms, which could not offer theirproduction on the market through single and sporadic sales. They could overcome these weaknessesof their business through participation in cooperative marketing. This article goal is to establish theadvantages and the constraints of cooperative business marketing model for food security in farmsof Smolyan district, Bulgaria. Farmers expect some advantages from the participation in such cooperationform. Three are the main approved advantages: 1) better awareness of market requirements; 2) marketaccess facilitation; 3) realization of higher profit from the activity. These advantages are expectedas a result form the direct contact with the final consumers, without external mediators. The implementationof cooperative marketing has its challenges embarrassing its effective use. The main constraints are relatedto the efficiency of processes management and to the coordination of activities of different economic entities