Prioritizing sustainability in agricultural marketing cooperative research: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract Over the past decade, cooperatives have experienced a resurgence in the agricultural sector, facilitating the integration of small‐scale producers into competitive markets. Although research on cooperatives has expanded, significant gaps persist in achieving a comprehensive understanding of trends within agricultural marketing cooperatives (AMCs). The current study aims to address these gaps by examining existing literature, identifying prevailing trends and outlining directions for future research in the research field. A bibliometric review of AMCs is conducted, incorporating performance analysis through the Biblioshiny function in R software and science mapping via VOSviewer. Additionally, the Scientific Procedures and Rationales for Systematic Literature Reviews protocol is applied to analyse 311 bibliographic records retrieved from the Scopus database. The citation analysis revealed the most influential and productive authors, journals, articles, countries and institutions. Subsequently, the co‐word and co‐citation analysis identified different thematic areas and concerns in the literature as well as provided future research directions. The findings underscore the necessity of exploring sustainable cooperative models that prioritize inclusivity for smallholder farmers. Moreover, the study also highlights the importance of investigating the sustainability of these cooperatives, with particular attention to long‐term membership of farmers.