Capstone: Business and Operations for Circular Bio-Economy

Dr. Jos Bijman serves as Associate Professor at Wageningen University & Research, where he has established himself as a prominent expert on agricultural cooperatives and producer organizations in agrifood value chains. After completing his studies in Economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam, he has built an extensive career studying organizational aspects of agricultural cooperation and value chain management. His research focuses on how organizational characteristics such as internal governance, ownership structures, and member commitment affect business outcomes in agricultural cooperatives and producer organizations. As project manager of the EU H2020 CO-FRESH project, he leads research on sustainable and competitive fruit and vegetable value chains in Europe. He also manages the LIQUID project, focusing on quality improvement and inclusiveness in dairy value chains across Southeast Asia and East Africa. His influential work includes editing "Cooperatives, Economic Democratization and Rural Development" (2016), which examines the transformation of cooperatives in developing countries from public-service to member-service oriented organizations. Through his research on contract farming arrangements and producer organizations, he continues to advance understanding of how business collaboration can improve quality, innovation, and sustainability in agrifood value chains. His expertise particularly shines in analyzing how organizational structures affect the performance of agricultural cooperatives, demonstrated through his extensive work on cooperative governance models and member relationships across Europe.