Seminar paper from the year 2021 in the subject Agrarian Studies, language: English, abstract: This paper provides an overview of agricultural cooperatives versus model farmers in the malting barley value chain in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, per capita beer consumption increased by 20% annually. Thus, the increase in beer demand invited the emergence of multiple foreign beer factories towards the beer production that opened the door for malt barley contract farming. Malt barley contract farming was firstly introduced by Diageo followed by Heineken beer companies. Along the value chain of malt barley contract farming, agricultural cooperatives and model farmers are known chain actors. While some literature reveals the positive outcome of agricultural cooperatives in other agricultural activities, others verify agricultural cooperatives as the ineffective one.