Examination of the Impact of Agricultural Cooperatives on Marketing of Members’ Produce for Increased Income of Farmers

The study examines the Impact of Agricultural Marketing Cooperatives on Marketing of
Members’ Produce for Increased Income of Farmers using Maraban Jos Farmers
Cooperative Society Limited as case study. The research questions that guided the study
were: What are the activities of agricultural cooperatives on marketing of members’
produce for increased income of farmers? What are the Impacts of agricultural
cooperatives on marketing of members’ produce? What are the factors affecting
agricultural cooperatives on marketing of members’ produce? Percentage was used to
analyze the respondent bio-data and also was used to analyze the statement based on the
research questions. A survey method was used for this study. The population consisted of
all the male and female members of Maraban Jos Farmers Cooperative Society
Limited. Out of a total 480 members, a sample size of 241 was involved in the study. A
likert scale questionnaire was developed for the study. This 241 were used for the
computation and the analysis. Simple percentages and mean were used to analyze the data
based on the research questions. Research results show that agricultural cooperatives
serve as an indispensable tool in empowering agricultural productivity of
subsistence farmers, marketing their produce, increasing their income and indeed
general improvement in the welfare of members which promotes rural and urban
development, that the activities of farmers’ cooperatives in empowering agricultural
cooperatives members are numerous and are carefully designed to cater for the needs
of subsistence farmers in empowering their agricultural productivity this includes:
From increases my productivity, foster savings habit, increases household income and
the factors affecting farmers’ cooperatives in empowering agricultural productivity of
subsistence farmers shows that farmers’ agricultural cooperatives faced problems of
poor leadership, lack finance for expansion, high rate of loan default, bad records, failure
to attend meetings among others. It was recommended among others that there is need
for farmers’ cooperatives to keep up-to-date records in order for their activities to go
smoothly. To achieve that, there is need to train the respective staff on basic bookkeeping, accounting and record keeping. That the area of the operations of the societies
should be large enough so that they may have sufficient business and become viable.