Abstract:
The contribution of Seed producing cooperative (SPCs) are greatly contributing to the improvement of seed supply and the livelihood of members. However, their contribution to and members involvement in seed production and various cooperative activities have not yet systematically analyzed in north-western parts of Ethiopia. The main themes of this research were to analyze the contribution of SPCs in seed supply improvement and members’ livelihood, to examine the level of members’ participation in various cooperative activities, and to identify the key determinants that affect the performance of the cooperatives. This study is carried out in 2018/19 in West Gojjam zone of Amhara region taking two sample SPCs viz Avola Goshyeye and Kudme from Yilmana Densa and Mecha districts, respectively. Primary data were collected from 117 SPC members and ten local experts using structured interview questionnaire and focus group discussions; while secondary information was gathered from various periodicals. The data were analyzed by employing various descriptive statistical tools, rank index, t-test, correlations, and logistic regression using SPSS (v21.0) software. Results show that members’ were largely participated in activities in dividend, selling seed to cooperative (through cooperative), general assembly, buying basic seed, and production training, which were ranked using participation index as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th positions, respectively. The role of members in decision making is quite low for activities such as determining the price/value of share, the total number of shares to be purchased (investment amount), the amount of money to be borrowed from financial institutes, price setting (to buy seed from members) and price negotiation with buyers, which were reflected by 76.1%, 63.2%, 59.3%, 58.1% and 51.3% of the respondents, respectively. There was a positive and highly significant relationship of educational level of the respondents with both the level of participation (r=0.327; p<0.001) and decision making (r=0.387; p<0.001); and members’ position in the cooperative with level of participation (r=0.455; p<0.001) and role in decision-making (r=0.554; p<0.001). Therefore, these studies suggested to establish more SPCs in potential areas of the country based on demand and strengthen the existing with training and equipped them with physical, financial and human capitals.
Keywords: livelihood improvement, participation, seed supply, seed producing cooperatives
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