ఆగ్రోటెక్నాలజీ

నైరూప్య

Contributions of Cooperative Societies to Agricultural Development in Edo state, Nigeria. A Case study of Akoko-edo Local Government Area

Abudu S* and Annate I

This study was to assess the contributions of cooperative societies to icultural development in Edo State: A case study of Akoko- Edo Local Government Area. A total of 121 cooperative farmers were used for the study. The data were obtained through the use of structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics. The result revealed that 66.1% of the cooperative farmers were between 41-60 years old, 46% had secondary education, 52.9% of them had long years of farming experience, 64% had no extension visits from extension agents and 72.7% of the farmers belonged to one co-operative society and another for 11-15years. The result also revealed that majority (37.19%) of the farmers benefited from the cooperative marketing which was ranked 1st. This was followed by Provision of farm inputs to farmers (24.79%) and Provision of credit facilities to farmers (23.14%) which were ranked 2nd and 3rd respectively. The result of this study also revealed that the major (37.19%) sourse of information to farmers was through cooprative society while extension visits was the least (12.40%) sourse of information to farmers. Additionally, farmer’s participation in cooperative activities was majorly constrained by insufficient credit facility. It was therefore, recommended that farmers should utilize their membership of cooperative societies effectively by contributing money together in order to assist themselves financially.