Agrotechnology

Impact of cooperative societies on cassava production in Offa local government area, Kwara state, Nigeria

4^th International Conference on Agriculture & Horticulture

July 13-15, 2015 Beijing, China

Ibrahim Tomo K and Adebowale AO

Posters-Accepted Abstracts: Agrotechnol

Abstract:

This paper investigated the impact of cooperative societies on Cassava production in Offa local government area of Kwara state. Data were collected from a sample of 300 farmers of both the cooperators and the non-cooperators between January 2005 and January 2006. Data were chosen by Simple Random Sampling Technique. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the objectives while Man Whitney U test, Probit and Discriminant analysis were used for the analysis of the hypotheses. The results revealed that, majority 77 percent of the farmers were male. While 22 percent were females. The results further revealed that, majority of the farmers 55 percent were married, 49 percent with 4 children and above with majority of the farmers 30.7 percent attaining secondary level of education. From the study 62.3 percent had access to credit, 34.3 percent sourced their credit from cooperative societies. Majority of the farmers 33.3 percent used their money for mixed farming. The Man Whitney U results revealed a significant relationship between marital status, level of education and years involved in cooperative societies (P�?�0.05). The results indicated that, the most important constraints affecting cooperative societies are inadequate input supply, lack of money and lack of technical knowhow among others. The discriminant analysis showed the weight of the variables affect the membership of cooperatives. Therefore, Agricultural Cooperatives can be seen as a channel through which modern and sustainable agricultural practice can be in enhanced.

Biography :

Ibrahim Tomo K holds an MSc in Agricultural Extension and Rural Development and is currently a faculty member of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Extension at the Kebbi State University of Science and Technology, Aliero. He is presently pursuing a PhD in Rural Resource Management. He has published more than 15 papers and some of them in reputed journals. He is currently involved in several researches with interest in rural development.