Co-operative of use of farm equipment

In France, a co-operative of use of farm equipment ( CUMA ) is a agricultural Cooperative society, governed by the provisions of the book V of the rural Code, having the aim of placing at the disposal of its members of the farm equipment and the employees.

Service companies, they must join together a minimum of four associated co-operators to be able to constitute itself.

The CUMA largely supported the access to mechanization in the areas of small-scale farmings in which the cost of individual mechanization made it inaccessible. Community instruments, they often make it possible to engage the dynamic ones of territorial development. They also make it possible to the farmers to use a powerful material whose investment would not be justified on only one exploitation.

There exists in France 13.300 CUMA gathering 240.000 members.

History

At the exits of the second world war, French agriculture is organized to redeploy. A crowd of organizations sets up itself (trade unions, mutual insurance companies…). October 12th, 1945, the law on the co-operatives of use of farm equipments is promulgated. The next month, the national federation of Cuma is created. Cuma, with the support of the public authorities (access facilitated to the materials of the Marshall plan), are a tool of reorganization of the agricultural economics of the post-war period. With the rise of the novel methods (the tractor is standardized), they affirm the teaching dimension of their collective step. However, good number of Cuma result in failures: their creation had been justified indeed more by the occasion to acquire a material that by the will to cooperate between farmers. A loss of credit and confidence is perceptible as of beginning of the year 50. The National union of Cuma - kind of buying association of materials, oil products and coal - will be even dissolved.

From the middle of the Fifties, Cuma will reorganize slowly: responsibilisation of the members, formation to the management and the follow-up of the materials… They constitute, moreover, a ground of engagement for the militants of Jac, Catholic Agricultural Youth. Advisers in mechanization, organizers and accountants are recruited in the departments to accompany the groups. The law of agricultural orientation of 1962 gives to agriculture the means of its modernization. The agricultural productivity flies away. Cuma contribute, with the other groups of development (Ceta, Gva) to the rise of new husbandries (harvest, ensilage, handling, work of the ground). The crisis of 1973 will reinforce Cuma in their vocation to reduce the loads of mechanization.

To beginning of the year 80, the Cuma network communicates. It launches its first monthly newspaper, Western Entraid', which will be followed by three other editions. It also organizes its first agricultural living rooms (the Living room of Fodder, in June 1980 with Châteaubriant - the Loire Atlantique). The management of Cuma is computerized and standardized. The aggregation of the data on mechanization received from the farmers present of the statistics resulting from the users and rich person from lesson (edition of guides “cost price”). The arrival in 1981 of a left government starts again Cuma dynamics. Indeed, Edith Cresson, then Minister for agriculture, encourage the steps of group by loans with interest rate subsidy in Cuma for the acquisition of materials. It also founds the presence of representatives of Cuma in the agricultural authorities (Joint Committees and rooms of agriculture). The network gains in recognition. However, whereas new activities develop (drainage, irrigation, diversification of the productions, space management) and call statutory installations, the successive governments refuse any evolution of the legal rules which limit the activity of Cuma.

In the years 1990 and 2000, reasoned mechanization is essential in the Cuma step: better service with the members, collective use of tractors, organization of work, design of diagnostic softwares of the loads of mechanization…. Environmental protection is involved in the concerns. The teaching action of Cuma is started again by it (spreadings of the liquid manures and respectful manures of the environment, adjustments of the pulverizers to reduce excesses of pesticides). The new rural problems lead the farmers in Cuma to carry out actions with their rural neighbors and to be invested in room development projects: collective production of wood shredded or pure plant oil, cocompostage of green waste… In 1997, the Living room of Fodder, organized by Cuma, will change even name to become Safir, Salon of Fodder and Rural Initiatives.

In spite of a continuous decrease of the number of farmers, the activity of Cuma does not weaken, even if reorganizations are essential (fusion of Cuma, work in inter Cuma,…). They continue, as in the Sixties, their mission of development with through in particular of the organization of days of demonstration on the current techniques (harvest of grass, techniques without ploughing…).

The improvement of the living and working conditions becomes an important concern of the groups bringing the questions of organization to the center of the debates. In certain areas, farmers go even until sharing the integrality of their field-installed machines (in of Cuma known as “integrals”). The number of employment shared in Cuma believes. Besides the law of agricultural orientation of 2006 introduced into the Labor regulation the possibility for Cuma of carrying on an activity of grouping of employers. Cuma is affirmed like a tool of collective organization of work (materials and labor, paid or not) by the mutualisation, in proximity, of the needs for the farmers.

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