What do the accounts of agricultural cooperatives say about their returns to members?

This article examines the accounts of French agricultural cooperatives in order to determine the extent to which they provide information on the returns to their members. Cooperatives create value according to the expenses and income related to their members' contributions, as well as processing and marketing activities. This value is returned to the farmers through the payment of their production (interim payments and earn-outs) and the provision by the cooperative of the services and investments necessary for their activities. When the cooperative makes a profit, it has the option of returning part of it to its members in the form of patronage refunds (in proportion to the value of the contributions previously collected) or retaining it to ensure its financial solidity in the face of risks or to make some necessary investments. Based on a study of 417 cooperatives for the period 2018 to 2021, we analyze the different types of returns to members. We find that the distribution of patronage refunds is regular, directly correlated to the net income of each cooperative and is partly based on a logic of complementarity with the interim payments and earn-outs. However, it has no particular relationship with key economic elements, such as investment effort and debt, and structural aspects, such as the sector of activity.