Influence Of Agricultural Cooperatives In The Development Of Food Production In Nigeria
Need help with a related project topic or New topic? Send Us Your Topic
DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE PROJECT MATERIAL
Influence Of Agricultural Cooperatives In The Development Of Food Production In Nigeria
Chapter one
INTRODUCTION
Background for the Study
Agriculture accounts for approximately 20% of GDP in the African subregion (World Bank, 2005); it employs two-thirds of the population and accounts for 40% of export commodities (World Bank, 2000).
Despite its importance, the agriculture sector has underperformed over the last 30 years: agriculture and food production per capita in West Africa has stagnated in the last ten years (FAO, 2005), and grain crop yields are less than half that of other developing regions in Asia and South America.
If Africa wants to feed itself, elevate its people out of poverty, and achieve a reasonable level of long-term growth, it must address the dismal performance of its agricultural sector.
It is the major sector in Nigeria’s rural areas, accounting for less than half of the country’s cultivable agricultural land, owing to the fact that much of this land is cultivated by smallholders and farmers using rudimentary production techniques, resulting in lower yields.
Smallholder farmers have numerous challenges, including limited access to modern inputs and loans, poor infrastructure, insufficient market access, land and environmental degradation, and insufficient research and extension services (Oluwatayo et al 2008).
In order to address some of these difficulties, aid organisations and the government have reemphasised cooperatives as a strategy for promoting collective action to strengthen smallholder livelihoods by connecting them to national and global markets.
Cooperatives are described as independent associations of people who come together voluntarily to address their mutual economic and social needs through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise (International Cooperative Association, 1995).
Cooperatives are formed by like-minded individuals to pursue mutually beneficial economic interests, and they offer a unique instrument for attaining one or more economic objectives in an increasingly competitive global economy.
These goals include creating economies of scale, increasing bargaining power when dealing with other businesses, purchasing in bulk to achieve reduced pricing, and obtaining products and services that would otherwise be unavailable.
According to Develtere (1995), a cooperative is a medium through which members can receive services such as farm input, farm implements, farm mechanisation, agricultural loans, agricultural extension, member education, marketing of member farm produce, and other economic activities.
Cooperatives might be multipurpose or focused on a specific topic. A farmer’s cooperative, for example, provides smallholder farmers with economies of scale by making inputs, production methods, market information, and markets more affordable and efficient for them.
Today, in an environment where many people (particularly small-holder farmers) feel helpless to change their life, cooperatives can provide a powerful, lively, and sustainable economic alternative.
They are built on the compelling principle that when people work together, they can accomplish things that none of them could do alone. It has been seen as a third force, an alternative and balancing power to both large business and big government (ICA 1995).
Agricultural cooperatives encourage members to participate in collaborative cultivation of food and cash crops, among other things. Individual farmers cannot accomplish their aim for large-scale output due to limited financial resources and a high level of underdevelopment.
It is consequently in the farmers’ interest that resources be pooled in order to obtain enormous collective advantage, hence broadening the industrial basis of the economy and farmers’ management approaches (Enikaselu et al, 2005).
Need help with a related project topic or New topic? Send Us Your Topic