AN ANALYSIS OF THE ROLE OF COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES IN THE PROVISION OF AGRO PROCESSING FACILITIES IN THE RURAL AREAS {A CASE STUDY}

Thesis Overview

<p> </p><p><strong>1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY</strong><br> A cooperative is a pan- humane business organization formed by individuals who are desirous of pooling themselves and their resources together to form a democratically controlled organization devoid of pecuniary gain. The uniqueness of cooperative and it’s flexibility permits it to be practiced among farmers, fishermen, Artisans, Industrial and commercial workers, drivers, students, market men and women etc. Osy Obodechi (2006) cooperative may be defined as a voluntary association of persons grappling with the same socio-economic problems and legally constituted to serve the economic needs of its members democratically, providing services at cost or and sharing benefits in proportion to use.<br>Cooperative society helped farmers in numerous ways by providing agricultural equipment, machines and tools to achieve greater out in agricultural farm produce in the rural areas<br>As Chukwu (1990) put it, the cooperatives is made up of individual farmers, who have joined together to form a cooperative establishment for collective production.</p><p><br> However, the society provides education to the rural farmers concerning the use of machines to avoid break down in production. these machines and equipment include investors, tractor and tillage which enhance large scale production, these machines can be hired or bought from the government with the influence of the registered cooperatives societies. Prior to the cooperative ordinance of 1935, there exist some cooperatives which includes traditional cooperative institution I e saving club commonly known as Esusu and auxiliary cooperative society. Cooperative societies as a vehicle for promoting the interest of rural farmer and enhance their own individual welfare starting with the adventure of the Rochdale pioneer in 1844 in England. This medium enable the society to enter successfully into provision of agro processing facilities which cause positive change in the development of agriculture in the rural areas.</p><p> Rural areas in developing countries have agriculture as the main stay of their economy, therefore any effort in developing the rural areas must address agricultural development. According to Okeke E. U. (1999), Agricultural cooperatives are cooperatives found in all the sub sectors of agriculture. these sub sector of agriculture are crop production, livestock, forestry and wild life. S.Y. Berko (2001), Agricultural producer cooperatives are cooperative whose members are agriculturist or agricultural producers.<br>Therefore, for the rural farmers to be involved in the agro processing facilities, they must be familiar with the modern method and accept the institution involved such as :<br>A) Careful handling and maintenance of the facilities to avoid break down and enhance long term usage of the facilities.<br>B) Accepting technical assistance in response to specific problem<br>C) Improving the standard of the sustenance population involves the rural dwellers to accept the mobilization and allocation of resources and facilities to reach a desirable balance over time between the welfare and population service available to rural populace<br>D) Mass participation required that equipment should be allowed to poor farmers.</p><p><strong>1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM</strong><br>The present condition of farmers and rural dwellers in Nigeria&nbsp;&nbsp;is unsatisfactory, the image of poverty, hunger, disease totally disorganize the farming and agriculture sectors.<br>The percentage of the total population engaged in agriculture is diminishing, villages that are known for agricultural production has reduced since the invention of oil at Oloibiri in Bayelsa state 1956. Farming activities have been on low rate, rural urban migration take effect since there is no incentives given to this farmers and as such lack facilities to enhance production.<br>Farmer in Nigeria&nbsp;with reference to rural dwellers face major setback such as.<br><b>ECONOMIC PROBLEM</b> This is primitive system of farming which made it possible to be more of subsistence economy. poverty captured the rural farmer since they cannot afford the facilities required for production.<br><b>AGRICULTURAL PROBLEM </b>The land tenure system makes it difficult to acquire large piece of land for modern large scale farming. The government owns the big portion of land , the private sectors took to an extent which makes it difficult for the rural farmer to acquire.<br><b>SOCIAL PROBLEM </b>This involves absence of storage facilities, inadequate research, poor technological network and infrastructure.</p><p><strong>1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY</strong><br>The specific objectives are:-</p><ol><li>To study the economic activities carried out by the cooperative society in the provision of agro processing facilities in the rural acres</li><li>To study the ways of improving agro processing facilities</li><li>To identify the problem faced by cooperative society in their bid to contributed to the development of agro processing facilities in selected multipurpose cooperative society.</li><li>To study the perception of it member about the cooperative society</li><li>To study the function of cooperative society.</li><li>To make policy recommendation based on the finding</li></ol><p>Agro processing cooperative have taken shape in some part of Nigeria,&nbsp;for instanced zone of Ebonyi state is known for its cooperative rice mills. These helped to raise the future of farmers as they sell their raw material to the factories or process their produce as they avoid inconvenience to carry the raw material to sell at the market.</p><p><br> The cooperative mills enable the farmers to taste a better means of processing their raw material rather than the inefficient crude traditional manner. The establishment of industrial cooperative motivates produces to produce more and guarantees them high incomes.<br>The prevailing economy depression in the country worsen the situation by the rise in general price of good and services , inflation, unemployment , low income , low saving low investment, low return which the vicious cycle of poverty explains this situation weigh heavily on the whole population especially farmers whose deplorable socio-economy condition in the rural areas call for urgent attention from the federal government to revive the sector to improve agriculture by providing agro processing facilities , encourage the formation of cooperative society which stands a better position to revive the farmers by supplying input at subsidized rate and setting up various cooperative banks.</p><p><strong>1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY</strong><br>This study is of benefit to members of cooperatives societies since it shows to what extent cooperative societies contributes to the development of agro processing facilities to rural area. It checks the problem facing the society toward the provision of these agro facilities to the rural areas.<br>To the non-members, rural dwellers they are encourage to join an existing cooperative society or form one to improve on their agricultural practices through the introduction of modern agro processing facilities to the rural areas. It will also be of interest to the Federal, state and local government by using the data from the study in formation of policies that concerns agricultural development to the rural populace.</p> <br><p></p>