Cooperatives – those that are managed as a membership-based organization – accomplish an important objective in agriculture.  Marketing cooperatives allow farmers at varying scale to access markets, and in many cases, the essential infrastructure that make up the primary supply chain nodes between the field and downstream markets. 

France’s hemp industry is comprised of six hemp cooperatives, or chanvrières, that account for most of the processed hemp in the country.  Most French producers have a contract with one of the six.  According to the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN)