Collaboration in cooperatives helps farmers strengthen their economic position in dynamic agri-food markets. Unlike other types of businesses, agricultural cooperatives are user-owned, user-controlled, and user-benefitting enterprises. Their dual nature as business enterprises and social groups of members complicates performance evaluation. This study attempts to bridge the gap by developing a micro-level conceptual framework for benchmarking agricultural cooperatives. Based on a systematic literature review of 77 empirical studies published in 1987–2025 and thematic analysis, the authors propose an eight-dimensional conceptual framework encompassing competitive, financial, educational, efficiency, environmental, governance, operational, and social performance indicators. The review reveals that existing research prioritises financial indicators while overlooking cooperative-specific characteristics arising from their dualistic nature. The conceptual framework offers a structured conceptual basis for assessing the performance of agricultural cooperatives across sectors and countries. Although applying the framework is beyond the scope of this paper, the authors highlight prospective indicators for future empirical work and practical implementation.

The paper examines the working capital indicators to find out the differences between larger and smaller Estonian agricultural companies. In the task of working capital management, a balance between profitability and liquidity is under investigation. A higher level of current assets ensures higher liquidity, but reduces the profitability. The share of inventories in current assets is relatively high in agricultural companies, and can lead to liquidity problems in adverse circumstances. Low levels of current assets can lead to business interruptions, as insufficient stocks lead to delays in the production process, which in turn is amplified in yields or other outputs. The number of employees is used to distinguish the size of the company. The results show that the smallest agricultural companies have higher liquidity and relatively larger share of highly liquid current assets. Larger agricultural companies maintain a higher level of inventory and have a longer inventory turnover period. Smaller companies have a slightly higher share of loans in current liabilities, so they have to maintain a larger financial buffer. The cash conversion cycle is longer for the smallest and the largest agricultural companies while medium-sized companies have a shorter cash conversion cycle. Smaller companies have the longest receivables turnover, showing that they enable longer payment periods for buyers or may have difficulties collecting receivables from the production sold. Having low market power and long receivables turnover, they have relatively higher need for working capital.

The existence of adverse weather conditions increases the production risks of farms through crop yields in the crop sector. One of the measures to mitigate the risks from the weather in agriculture is to insure crops. In the Estonian insurance market, crop insurance is available to farmers. Government-based crop insurance subsidies apply to crop insurance premium, but so far, there is little demand for it among farmers. The aim of the paper is to identify the terms of crop insurance that play a role in deciding in favour of crop insurance. A survey examines the factors related to the insurance decisions of agricultural producers about their preferences regarding the terms of crop insurance. The data, collected from Estonian agricultural companies through an online questionnaire, is used to show farmers’ preferences with regards to crop insurance. The results show that interest to using crop insurance was relatively low among farmers despite the agricultural insurance premium subsidies provided by the Agricultural Registers and Information Board in Estonia. Regarding crop insurance, it would be rather used by farmers who consider insurable production risks and insurance premium subsidies more important. Of the terms, insurance indemnity, covered risks, and insurance premium were considered the most important in making a decision in favour of using crop insurance. Interest in crop insurance products would increase if specific insurance conditions were understandable and acceptable to producers.