Assessing the Contribution of Agricultural Cooperatives to Poverty Alleviation in the case of Gechi District, Ilubabor Zone, Ethiopia

Abstract

Poverty is a major social and economic problem of many countries including Ethiopia. Cooperative is established throughout the country, especially in the rural areas of the country so that the people voluntarily come together to work in collaboration to solve their social & economic problems in their communities and beyond as much as possible. The study is conducted with the main objective of assessing, the contributions of farmers’ cooperatives to Poverty alleviation. The study used primary data from household survey, key informant interview to get background information and investigate the contribution of the agricultural cooperatives. Secondary data is also used to supplement the primary data. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the personal characteristics of the respondents. The Foster-Greer-Thorbecke (FGT) Poverty Measure Model was used to assess poverty level and its variation among members and non-members of the cooperatives. The study found that agricultural cooperative highly contributing in poverty reduction by playing tangible roles. These includes accessing the poor rural community to get loan so as they engage on different income generation activities, providing different agricultural inputs and home consumption items in their vicinity, likewise, buying different produces from the producers with good price by avoiding brokers/middlemen who run for only their benefit. Even though the cooperatives have some challenges that should be worked on further to solve for more success. And to do these there must be collective efforts of all concerned bodies to find appropriate solution.