do not trust in their own ability to become agents of change and generally expect the
government to initiate any development processes. "Everything depends on the
mayor, people here have no money and no power, so they cannot do anything. The
people here will not be against new activities, but if they are in committees without
any power and any money, what should they do?", as one interviewee said. It appears
that there also have been deficits in information transmission concerning national and
European programmes for rural development.
2. Interest of local governments has been eroding. The periodical change of local gov-
ernments in three of the four communes of Dolina Strugu led to a decline of coopera-
tion between the non-profit organisation and the representatives of the local authori-
ties. This is primarily due to the frequent replacement of local authority representa-
tives. As some interview partners mentioned, the relationship between the local gov-
ernments seems to be more characterised by competition than by cooperation. Sup-
posedly, due to the success of the organisation and its high acceptance among local
inhabitants, local government authorities fear a loss of power. This in turn results in
coordination problems between the local authorities and the organisation's initiatives.
For example, a common strategy for regional tourism development is still missing.
Actions undertaken by the local authorities like creating an artificial lake are not co-
ordinated with "Dolina Strugu".
3. Marketing problems of bigger farms remain unsolved. Despite its success in develop-
ing regional product outlets, “Chmielnik Zdroj” has been unable to solve the market-
ing problems of bigger commercial farms. Farmers reported: "They consolidate
mostly small farms which have a half hectare of potatoes. I remember, there were
some situations where farmers had very good yields and then they had problems to
sell their crops because they [the marketing cooperative] did not need that much."
"Farmers here are waiting for another place to sell their crops, a small processing
plant is really needed in here". However, the partnership might be a positive example
and a promising incentive for similar cooperative initiatives, such as establishing a
processing plant. Furthermore, the advisory agency of "Dolina Strugu" eases farm-
ers’ access to additional financial sources which could lead to further farm invest-
ments and an improvement of their competitiveness.
6 Conclusions
The presented public-private partnership is an example for a decentralised rural development
approach and gives reason to reconsider alternative institutional arrangements in regions
where agricultural producer groups failed due to local collective action problems. In our case
study such problems could be overcome successfully by utilising institutional complementari-
ties between government, community and market. While the regional distribution network for
agricultural products is largely market-based, the partnership came into being only as a result
of local collective action. Local government officials played a crucial role in this founding
process and part of the seed capital came from public sources.
As a public-private partnership the marketing cooperative does not only reach private busi-
ness goals, it also serves different public objectives like the improvement of local infrastruc-
ture, the provision of jobs and the enhancement of local purchasing power. It further gives
local peasants the opportunity to sell their products and to continue farming which led to a
reduction of fallow land and therefore increased the attractiveness of the region not at least for
the residents and for tourism.
However, the market-based strategy comes at the cost of only limited involvement of the
broader civil society. The majority of the rural population perceives the marketing partnership
from the perspective of the producer or consumer, but not as a stimulus to become personally