What is a key feature of cooperatives in coffee farming?

The focus of cooperatives in coffee farming is on collaboration and community. A key feature of these cooperatives is that they center around a common mill or processing center. This setup allows smallholder farmers to pool their resources, which can lead to more efficient processing of coffee beans and higher quality products. By sharing a common facility, members benefit from reduced costs, access to better technology, and the ability to produce coffee that meets specific quality standards. This communal approach helps to enhance the economic viability of each farmer while allowing them to collectively market their coffee under a unified brand, often leading to better pricing and customer relationships.

The other options do not capture the essence of how cooperatives typically operate. While some cooperatives may be owned by families, the collective ownership and resource-sharing aspect is more central to their structure. Likewise, processing coffee through individual mills would not leverage the benefits of cooperation, and large-scale automated production is contrary to the typical small-scale operations of most cooperatives, which aim to support smallholder farmers rather than large industrial production methods.