Evaluation of Agricultural Cooperatives on Crops Production in Gwagwalada Area Council of FCT, Abuja
Chapter One
Objective of the study
The broad objective of this study is an Evaluation of effect of Agricultural Cooperatives on crops production in Gwagwalada Area Council of FCT, Abuja; a case study of Rice farmers. The specific objectives were to:
- describe the characteristics/features of farmers cooperative society.
- assess the role of cooperative society in enhancing crop (rice) production.
- ascertain the problems that affect farmers’ cooperative.
- identify factors for enhancing the role performance of farmers’ cooperatives society.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Conceptual framework
There are some fundamental and technical concepts that demand for clarifications in the way they are being used in this study and they include: the concepts of cooperatives, agricultural development, etc.
Concept of Cooperative
The idea of people working together is the basis for the formation of cooperatives. The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA, 2010) as an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise. This definition emphasizes that cooperatives are based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy and equality (ICA 2007).
Cooperative societies are community based, self co0ntrolled and self funded microfinance institution (Simkhada, 2001) because they are meant to operate at the micro level in most cases to serve the low level strata of the economy, to people who in most cases lack access to formal banking system.
Cooperatives are financial organizations that are owned and controlled by the members and they provide savings and credit services to their members in the community (Sharma et al, 2005). Cooperatives are a form of microfinance institutions owned by group of people who are the members and they provide small scale financial services-majorly savings and loans just like any other microfinance institutions to their members. This is different from the formal microfinance institutions such as the microfinance banks (MFBs) in Nigeria which are meant to serve the general public. Cooperatives are voluntary associations that are member owned, self managed and democratically controlled within a specific location (Adebayo and Yusuf, 2004). The existence of cooperative in a community suggest that they may be location bound or restricted which also apply to some formal microfinance institutions especially the MFBs in Nigeria with the microfinance policy delineating the operational locations of MFB (CBN, 2005) either as a u it MFB or a state-wide MFB.
Cooperatives are independent association of people who voluntarily unite to form a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise called cooperatives, to meet members’ economic, social and cultural needs (Henry and Schimmel, 2011). Cooperative can be seen as an arrangement designed to improve the lot of individuals and enhance micro and small scale entrepreneurs both in the rural and urban areas in mobilizing savings and accessing fund as loans as at when needed from the scheme. Cooperative societies are privately organized association of individuals of like minds who come together to operate a savings and loan programme among themselves (Oluyombo, 2010).
Cooperative is therefore, owned and controlled by the member who voluntarily come together based on share on share value to meet members’ needs. Cooperative is an association of individuals who voluntarily formcooperative societies (Lohlein and Wehrheim, 2003) who are united in their quest for the economic benefits of the members. Cooperative can be an intervention based on social intermediation in which poor people can mobilize their savings, link them with credit and finally become self employed (Singh, 2004). The social intermediation in cooperative societies includes training of members on different areas of vocations, health, literacy, business record keeping and management skills as found necessary. Social intermediation also include support for member in trouble such as sickness and those having essential social function to perform such as burials and weddings.
Cooperative is one of a range of financialarrangement design to attract the poor as either borrower and/or savers (Montgomery and Weiss, 2005). Cooperative is a microfinance arrangement to help the low income earners with financial services that will enable them to create wealth without any discrepancy as to access financial and non financialservices that are packaged in a manner that enable those who are unable to access formal financial services to access comparatively small loans, saving schemes and other services for working capital and income generation (Nathan et al, 2004).
Cooperatives are privately organized institutions that are owned and controlled by their members (Branch, 2004). One person, one vote is therefore applicable to cooperative societies because the association is jointly owned and by the members. There is uniformity in membership class of cooperative members, unlike ownership of a limited company that can comprise of ordinary shareholders and controlled enterprise (Alladadi, 2011). “They appear to be the most standardized informal financial institutions with well organized savings mobilization strategy in the informal market” (Oloyede, 2008)
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, we described the research procedure for this study. A research methodology is a research process adopted or employed to systematically and scientifically present the results of a study to the research audience viz. a vis, the study beneficiaries
Research Design
Research designs are perceived to be an overall strategy adopted by the researcher whereby different components of the study are integrated in a logical manner to effectively address a research problem. In this study, the researcher employed the survey research design. This is due to the nature of the study whereby the opinion and views of people are sampled. According to Singleton & Straits, (2009), Survey research can use quantitative research strategies (e.g., using questionnaires with numerically rated items), qualitative research strategies (e.g., using open-ended questions), or both strategies (i.e., mixed methods). As it is often used to describe and explore human behaviour, surveys are therefore frequently used in social and psychological research.
Population of the study
According to Udoyen (2019), a study population is a group of elements or individuals as the case may be, who share similar characteristics. These similar features can include location, gender, age, sex or specific interest. The emphasis on study population is that it constitute of individuals or elements that are homogeneous in description.
Population of this study comprised of all members of rice cooperative society in Gwagwalada Area Council.(140 members).
Sample size determination
A study sample is simply a systematic selected part of a population that infers its result on the population. In essence, it is that part of a whole that represents the whole and its members share characteristics in like similitude (Udoyen, 2019). In this study, the researcher adopted the convenient sampling method to determine the sample size.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
The results of the findings are discussed under the following subheadings
Socio Economic Characteristics of the Farmers
Sex: Results in Table 4.2.1 reveals that majority (74.3%) of the respondents were male, while only 25.7% were female. This means that farmers cooperative in have more male membership. The sex distribution could be as a result of gender roles in production. These males explore more means of generating income and more strong in performance farm activities to meet the needs of the household.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Summary
The overall purpose of the study was an Evaluation of Agricultural Cooperatives on crops production in Gwagwalada Area Council of FCT, Abuja. Specifically, the study was designed to describe the characteristics/features of farmers cooperative, asset the role of farmers cooperative in enhancing rice production, ascertain the problem that production, ascertain the problem that affect farmers cooperative and identify factors for enhancing the role performance of rice farmers cooperatives.
The study was carried out in Gwagwalada Area Council of FCT, Nigeria. The population of the study were all members of farmers cooperative society in the state. Two agricultural wards who participated and grow rice were selected using simple random selection technique. A total of seventy respondents (14 officers and 56 members) constituted the sample size for the study. A set of interview schedule and questionnaire were used for data collection. Frequency percentage, mean score, factor analysis were used to analyse the data collected.
The result of the study showed that the majority (74.3%) of the farmers were male. The mean age of the farmers was 45 years. Majority (88.6%) of the farmers were married. The educational levels revealed that most of the respondents had one form of formal education with about (76%). The mean household size of the farmers was 5 persons. The mean farming experience of the farmers was about 22 years while the mean farm size was about 3 hectares. The majority of the farmers specialized in both production, processing and marketing cooperatives, the mean quantity harvested was about 71 bags, information from fellow farmers cooperative society, town criers were the most popular (99%) each while majority (62.9%) had been visited by extension agent and majority 74.3% had been visited 0-1 times the last one year. Majority (54.3%) of the farmers had received training in the last 5 years.
Among the characteristics of the rice farmers cooperative 84.47 of the farmers were in multipurpose cooperative and 64.3% of the respondent had between 21 and 30 persons as members while majority 91.4% of the respondent indicates that their leadership structures is through election.
Majority 97.1% of the cooperatives had sources fund from fine to defaulters while all of the cooperative society had their membership obligation as paying of monthly dues and majority 55.7% of the cooperative society had their requirement that members must compulsory be a rice farmer.
Linkage with organizations revealed that ADP/MOA, credit institution and non governmental organization (NGO) had links with cooperative society. Also majority (95%)of the cooperative had their common interest as high productivity while the majority perceived effect of cooperative on the livelihood of members was skill empowerment (M =3.4). It also revealed that majority (90%) of the farmers had access to input at subsidized rate.
With respect to the roles performed by rice farmers cooperative society in the study area, the respondents expressed that the major role performed were preparation of nursery/transplanting and provide information on consumer preference (M=4.5) respectively.
Based on the problems that affect rice farmers cooperative society the respondents perceived problems that affect cooperative as competition from private firm had the most serious with a mean score of 3.7 on a 4 point scale. The findings further revealed from a rotated component matrix on farmers perception of problem affecting rice cooperative and the following
four problems were factored: Organisational problem, institutional problem, poor support problem and production processing problem.
The study also showed that enhancing linkage interaction with relevant institution and among cooperative (M=3.7) was the strong perceived factor for enhancing performance of rice cooperative society.
The findings further revealed the exploratory factor analysis into possible factors for enhancing the performance of rice farmers cooperative. Four enhancing performance were extracted based on the response of the respondents as economic factors, linkage factor, training and developmental factor and leadership factor.
Conclusion
Based on the findings of the study, the following conclusions were arrived at:
- The socio economic characteristics of the farmers indicated that the majority of them were males, these farmers have long years of farming experience and they also have relatively large household size.
- Characteristics of farmers cooperatives indicated that multi- purpose cooperative society was the most popular cooperative society and relatively large membership size which shows the important of cooperative society.
- The farmers cooperatives performed a serious role in achieving high productivity of rice thereby trying to meet the demand of the growing population.
- A common perception by farmers on most of the identified problems shows that these problems are true with the rice cooperative societies.
- Organizational problem, institutional problem, poor support problem and production and processing problem still pose some problem in the study area thereby slowing down the functioning of rice cooperative society.
Recommendation
Based on the major findings of this study, the following recommendations were made:
- To improve the role of farmers cooperative society, they should have a strong link with major government and non governmental organization which should be keeping them up to date with information and training.
- Given the fact that agricultural production, operation are time-bound, the timely adequate and consistent provision of farming input such as improved seeds, fertilizers, herbicides etc. At subsidized cost by governments. This will enhance rice farmers cooperative production in the area.
- Farmers cooperatives should not depend only on government for agricultural incentives but rather use their pulled resources to acquire their need.
- Based on the principle that cooperative society is organization of self help through mutual cooperation. That is working jointly on the principle of each for all and all for each. Open membership is vital so as to the farmer to have free assess in joining rice cooperative society which in turn will boost rice production.
References
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