FARMERS’ COOPERATIVES AND AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN KWALI AREA COUNCIL, FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY, ABUJA, NIGERIA
FARMERS’ COOPERATIVES AND AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN KWALI AREA COUNCIL, FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY, ABUJA, NIGERIA
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Date
2014-07
Authors
AGBENYOUR, INNOCENT YAMUSA
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Abstract
Cooperatives as voluntary social organizations have profound influence on socio-economic
development all over the world. It empowers members to participate actively in meaningful
business ventures, improved living condition, creating job opportunities, improved
managerial skills and increase agricultural productivity. The study aimed at assessing the
influence of the farmers’ cooperatives on agricultural development in Kwali Area Council,
Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, Nigeria. Moreover, it investigated the socio-economic
status of the cooperatives, the reason for joining cooperatives, the attitude of the members
and the constraints facing the cooperatives in the study area. Primary data were generated
through the administration of 280 well-structured questionnaire by employing a purposive
sampling technique. Focus group discussion (FGD) was adopted to collect data from relevant
groups in order to supplement data generated from the questionnaire survey. The secondary
data were generated from official gazettes, research reports, journals, text-books and online
materials. Descriptive statistical technique was employed to summarize the data into tabular
forms and calculation of the frequency, percentages, and averages. In addition, inferential
technique such as the multiple regression was used to measure the degree of relationship
between the farmers’ cooperatives and agricultural development. The study revealed that
subsidizing agricultural inputs (0.025), provision of market information (0.002) and building
of social bonds and ties in the community (0.013) have positive correlation and significant at
0.05 alpha value. However, given the important role of credit, education and marketing of
produce which all had positive coefficients but not statistically significant. The Chi-square
technique revealed that P-values of education (0.001), years of farming experience (0.004),
duration in cooperatives (0.001) and family size (0.003) were significant at 0.05 thereby
rejecting the null hypothesis. The study also revealed that the capacity of the farmers’
cooperatives to function effectively in the provision of services to members is limited, as
(71%) of the respondents had never attended any form of training and (63.8%) have
membership dues as their source of income. Over (50%) of respondents’ perception of
farmers’ cooperative is that it exists as a source of cheap loan from government. Lack of
encouragement and support from government/development partners’, lack of production
requirement and poor understanding of cooperative activities were among the major
constrains to cooperation reported with (98%), (95%) and (87%) respectively. The study
concludes that, though farmers’ cooperatives have the potential to contribute to agricultural
development, there exist gaps and inadequacies that limit their fulfilling these roles. Based on
the findings, the study recommends among other things that there is need to strengthen the
capacity of farmers’ cooperatives to meet the needs of members, create awareness in the
community by mobilizing them through symposia, training workshops and organize seminars
that can enhance administrative, innovative ideas and technical skills to make them selfsustaining
Description
A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF
MASTER OF SCIENCE DEGREE IN RURAL DEVELOPMENT
DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY,
FACULTY OF SCIENCE
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA
NIGERIA
JULY, 2014
Keywords
FARMERS’, COOPERATIVES,, AGRICULTURAL, DEVELOPMENT,, KWALI,, COUNCIL,, FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY,, ABUJA, NIGERIA