Survey data on joint cropland management among agri-food cooperatives in Mediterranean Spanish Regions

This dataset presents data collected from joint cropland management practices survey in agri-food cooperatives of Mediterranean Spanish Regions. The objective was to examine to what extent cooperatives offer joint services, including joint management or integral exploitation of smallholdings, for the incorporation of new professionals. Data collection was conducted to five agri-food organizations: three agri-food cooperatives federations -Castilla-La Mancha, Comunitat Valenciana, and Murcia-, two second-degree agri-food cooperatives -Anecoop and Unió Nuts-, all of them located in Mediterranean Spanish Regions. A total of 1.168 survey questionnaires were distributed between July 2020 and February 2021 across five organizations through the snowball sampling method. Data from 112 collected questionnaires were correctly answered, but 106 were selected for analysis. The dataset includes socioeconomic data, productive information, and innovative characteristics from agri-food cooperatives surveyed, all in order to be able to examine the relationship between those factors and joint cropland management practices they carry on.


a b s t r a c t
This dataset presents data collected from joint cropland management practices survey in agri-food cooperatives of Mediterranean Spanish Regions. The objective was to examine to what extent cooperatives offer joint services, including joint management or integral exploitation of smallholdings, for the incorporation of new professionals. Data collection was conducted to five agri-food organizations: three agri-food cooperatives federations -Castilla-La Mancha, Comunitat Valenciana, and Murcia-, two second-degree agrifood cooperatives -Anecoop and Unió Nuts-, all of them located in Mediterranean Spanish Regions. A total of 1.168 survey questionnaires were distributed between July 2020 and February 2021 across five organizations through the snowball sampling method. Data from 112 collected questionnaires were correctly answered, but 106 were selected for analysis. The dataset includes socioeconomic data, productive information, and innovative characteristics from agri-food cooperatives surveyed, all in order to be able to examine the relationship between those factors and joint cropland management practices they carry on.
© 2022 The Author(s

Value of the Data
• The data provides agri-food cooperative information of Mediterranean Spanish Regions in terms of socioeconomic characteristics, member features, the evolution of area cultivated and land abandonment, product and governance innovation, formulas of cooperation applied, and agronomic services offered. All this information is useful to provide some guidelines to identify the conditions observed in cooperatives that implement joint cropland management initiatives. • In addition, data can be used in studies on the level of cropland abandonment, in studies that relate the social economy to product, process and organizational innovation, and in studies on social innovation in agriculture, among others. • The main beneficiaries of the dataset include researchers and policymakers dealing with social economy, land abandonment, and joint management initiatives. Furthermore, it is helpful to agri-food cooperatives who are coping with aiming to reorient their organizational structure to adopt different cropland management initiatives. • The dataset can be used to identify the economic and social attributes, or combinations thereof, that characterize a cooperative profile capable of undertaking a joint cropland management strategy. Additionally, the dataset and the questionnaire elaborated may be used by other researchers who aim to conduct similar studies in other regions, either Spanish, European or other places.

Data Description
Land abandonment is currently a challenge in Europe [3] , especially worrying in certain regions with a large proportion of small farms and where land fragmentation is a problem [7 , 11] , as is the case of permanent crops of citrus orchards, vineyards and other fruits, mainly grown in the Mediterranean areas of Spain. As farms disappear without generational renewal and stop cultivating their land, many marketing cooperatives find themselves in an awkward position [9] .
There are different strategies to reduce farmland/cropland abandonment [2 , 4 , 6] . One of them is the grouping of plots for joint cultivation. This is a recent strategy adopted by marketing cooperatives to deal with land abandonment, often due to the lack of generational renewal, which is especially useful for small-scale farming and can be considered a form of social innovation and collective entrepreneurship [10] . One significant advantage of such strategy lies in the fact that it does not necessarily change cooperatives members' land ownership, which lowers the transaction costs of the improvement in farm structure [9] .
Through this strategy, collaboration between smallholders can make it possible to efficiently address the production and management of some crops [1 , 5 , 8] . Joint cropland management by marketing cooperatives enables an increase in farmers' incomes through cost reductions achieved via economies of scale and more professional management.
The dataset provides information on data collected from 106 Mediterranean-Spanish-Region agri-food cooperatives on a wide range of issues, all focused on joint cropland management practices carried on agri-food cooperatives. The survey data include the following sections: (i) socioeconomic characteristics, (ii) member features, (iii) land abandonment, (iv) product innovation, (v) governance innovations applied, (vi) inter-cooperation formulas participated in, and (vii) agronomic services and farming sections offered. The questionnaire and datasets are provided as a supplementary file. Table 1 presents the main characteristics of the agri-food cooperatives surveyed. Most of the agri-food cooperatives are located in the region of Valencia (29%), Castellón (20%), Tarragona (17%), and Alicante (13%). They are especially dedicated to olive oil (43%), dry fruits (42%), and citrus fruits (36%). Furthermore, their average turnover in the last two years is, mainly, between 1 million € and 10 million € (47%), followed by those with a turnover from 30 0,0 0 0 € and 1 million € (19%), and from 10 million € to 50 million € (15%). Table 2 shows member features of the agri-food cooperatives surveyed. Generally, 48% of them have between 100 and 500 members. On the one hand, most of them (53%) have a percentage between 0% and 10% of members under 40 years old. Of those cooperatives who have members under 40, 40% have a percentage more than 20% of professional members. On the other hand, 36% of the cooperatives have a ratio between 50% and 75% of members who are more than 65 years old, and 28% a percentage between 25% and 50%. Finally, 43% of agri-food cooperatives have a share of more than 75% of no-professional members, followed by 20% of those who all members are professional.
The land abandoned in the agri-food cooperatives is 51% between 0% and 25% of the total land, as shown in Table 3 . Furthermore, the average land abandonment rate of most agri-food cooperatives surveyed (53%) is less than 5 hectares per year. In general terms, 28% of them have not changed their cultivated area, but 57% have reduced it with different rates (less than 5%, 12%; from 5% to 10%, 21%; more than 10%, 24%). The main reasons for land abandonment are poor performance (53%) and retirements (50%).
The answers to the product innovation section, in Table 4 , show that 33% of cooperatives surveyed have not promoted new varieties, new crops or cropping systems, or differentiated payment for quality in the last five years, but 25% have somewhat promoted them. Moreover, 52% of them have not promoted organic farming or waste farming in the previous five years, and 75% have not done it for new processed, 4th , or 5th range products in the previous five years.
The governance innovation section, whose answers are in Table 5 , shows that 53% of the agri-food cooperatives surveyed have not promoted women or young people as members in the last five years. Of those who have promoted them, 42% have used the measure of access to operational plans or other aids for their inclusion. In addition to this, 56% of the cooperatives have promoted young people, women, or non-members of the board in the Board of Directors of the cooperative in the last five years, and 72% have no terms limit for the members of the Board of Directors in the cooperative's bylaws or have no plan to implement it. Table 6 shows 34% of agri-food cooperatives have not participated in inter-cooperation, integration, or other formulas in the last five years. 23% have done it in flexible formulas for collaboration with other organizations, same percentage as those who have done it in binding agreements in the form of commercial partnerships. For those who have participated in one of the different cooperation formulas, 54% have experienced with peer entities.     Table 6 Cooperation formulas applied. Al least 61% of the cooperatives surveyed have a farming services section, as shown in Table 7 , and 71% of those who do not have are not planning to implement it. The main agronomic services offered are pest and disease control (93%), land tillage (80%), pruning and waste management, fertilization, and harvesting (three all with 73%). Additionally, 14% have a joint cropping section that consolidates mainly between 10 and 40 hectares (40%).

Experimental Design, Materials and Methods
In order to collect empirical data of joint cropland management among agri-food cooperatives in Mediterranean Spanish Regions, a questionnaire was designed, according to a preceding study [9] , and a online survey was carried out, thanks to the collaboration with agri-food cooperatives federations of Castilla-La Mancha, Comunitat Valenciana, and Murcia, and two second-degree agri-food cooperatives,Anecoop and Unió Nuts, all of them members of the operational group InnoLand, of the European Innovation Partnership for Agricultural productivity and Sustainability (EIP-AGRI).
The questionnaire content was based on aspects that were found to be relevant for joint cropland management. The main characteristics of agri-food cooperatives sought were socioeconomics information, member features, surface area evolution and land abandonment, product innovation, governance innovation, cooperation formulas, and agronomic and farming services. Characteristics of all questions of the questionnaire are shown in Table 8 . It was included mainly closed, semi-open and open questions, some of them multi-response and 5-point Likert scale as well. The survey required an estimated 15-20 min to be completed.
Between July 2020 an February 2021 the questionnaire was hosted online and invitations to answer it ware distributed to CEOs of agri-food cooperatives of Mediterranean Spanish Regions. The survey was closed when no responses were collected for a month. From the 1168 invitations to answer the survey which were sent, 112 were finally answered. Informed consent which include statements about the use of the information for academic purposes, and participation was voluntary was obtained from all participants. The anonymity of participants was ensured in the

Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.