THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF FARMERS' COOPERATIVES IN THE JEMAA AREA OF KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF FARMERS' COOPERATIVES IN THE JEMAA AREA OF KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA
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Date
1983-09
Authors
NKOM, Steven Adamu
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Abstract
The achievement of rapid and sustained increases in
agricultural productivity and rural welfare, which currently
forms the cornerstone of Nigeria's development policy, does not
only hinge around the use of modern agrotechnology but also
entails the evolutioin, propriate organizations and
institutions which will facilitate the mobilization of the
rural producers for increased productivity and create the rig
socio-economic atmosphere for a poverty-alleviating pattern of
rural development. Cooperatives are widely considered as the
most appropriate institutions for inducing and enabling the
peasant producers to expand and improve their production, and
for facilitating the equitable distribution of the benefits of
development among the rural population.
This study has examined the extent to which cooperatives
in Nigeria have served as mechanisms for mobilizing the
country's millions of peasant producers for rural development*
It has been found that cooperatives are largely irrelevant , or
at best tangential, to the production and living conditions of
the majority of rural producers. The country's agricultural
cooperatives serve only about 5% or less of the rural
population; and this 5% is drawn mostly from the better-off
class of rural elites. Instead of assisting the poor majority
of peasants to improve their productivity and living standards,
the benefits of these cooperatives have been reaped mostly by
the weathier sub-stratum of rural society.
The operational performance of these cooperatives has been
found to be both corrupt and unsatisfactory because the
emerging rural bourgeoisie which dominate these cooperative
have seen them essentially as avenues for acquiring stateloans
and other forms of capital for their own private
expansion and enrichment. The spirit of self-reliance through
regular thrift savings5 the collective effort, active
involvement and personal sacrifices which cooperation Lis;
and the material and < zational support which form the
bedrock of cooperative activity are not only wanting in the
cooperatives but have been replaced by the opposite attitudes
of opportunism, individualism and. dependence en government
assistance.
It has been argued that the concentration of cooperative
benefits in the hands of the rural elite as well as the
opportunistic orientation of their members can only be understand
within the context of Nigeria's capitalist path of development.
The principles, structure and ideology of these cooperatives
are in line with, and encourage, agrarian capitalist
development whose fundamental essence does not lie in the
mobilization of the small-scale peasant producers but in the
creation of a small class of efficient and large-scale a
farmers. Contrary to people's expectations, the pumping of mi
state resources into the cooperative movement in the name
assisting the small-seal iants tends to achieve the
result of consolidating the rural bourgeoisie and laying
foundation for the marginalization and proletarianization of
the peasantry. What is needed is an entirely new oo<
model which stems from, and reflects, the needs and aspirations
of the peasantry, and not a cooperative machinery designed and
financed by the state to serve the interests of the ruling class.
Description
A Dissertation submitted to the Postgraduate school, Ahmadu
Bello University, in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Department of Sociology,
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences,
Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.
Keywords
POLITICAL ECONOMY,, FARMERS,, COOPERATIVES,, JEMAA AREA,, KADUNA STATE,, NIGERIA