Influence of Cooperatives on Farmers’ on Utilization of Agricultural Inputs in Abia State , Nigeria

Abstract

The study determined the influence of farmers’ cooperative society on utilization of agricultural inputs by farmers in Abia state, Nigeria. The population of the study comprised members of all the farmers’ co-operative societies in Abia State. In selecting the sample, multi-stage sampling technique was used. In the first stage, the state was divided into the three (3) agricultural zones, in the second, two blocks were selected from each of the zones, giving a total of six blocks out of 54 blocks in the State. In the third stage, three sub circles were selected from each block, giving a total of nine sub-circles. Nine farmers were randomly selected from each of the 18 sub-circles giving a total of 162 cooperative farmers, as the sample size. The result showed that there was high utilization of agro-inputs, by 50.63% of the respondents, while 41.36% of the respondents moderately utilized inputs.  The mean response on a four point Likert rating was 3.81, which implies high utilization of agro-inputs. The study found a significant influence of cooperative membership on utilization of agro-inputs. An F-value of 24.909 and a coefficient of ‘r’ of 17.842 was significant at 1% level. Hence, the null hypothesis was rejected. TheR² value of 0.764indicates that 76.4% variation in the utilization of agro-inputs by farmers is attributable to cooperative membership.The paper concluded that cooperative membership enhances agro-input utilization among farmers. It recommended, among others, that extension personnel should encourage farmers to organize themselves into cooperatives to have greater access to, and utilization agro-inputs.