Dairy co-operatives can improve access to market information, reduce costs and price risks of marketing and can increase producers' access to technology, extension and related services and enhance bargaining power of dairy producers. The overall objective of the society is to alleviate members' milk marketing problem and increase their income generated from the milk and milk by products.. So, this paper will find out the solution for those problems. The major objective of this study is to identify factors affecting members Participation in primary cooperatives in north Gondar zone. North Gondar Administrative Zone and in the zone 8 districts and 11 primary dairy cooperatives were selected purposively and 114 sample respondents were selected by using simple random sampling methods. Both qualitative and quantitative data as well as primary and secondary data were used in the study.. The result of the study indicated that except access to transport, feed availability and proximity all discrete and continuous variables had a significant association with members' participation of the dairy cooperatives. The binary logistic regression result of members' participation also shows that from the hypothesized thirteen independent variables only six variables were found to be significantly influenced members' participation of primary dairy cooperatives. As a recommendation, the concerned bodies, members and dairy cooperatives should give emphasis on factors like transport access, number of milking cows, price of raw milk, training access, patronage dividend and access of credit to increase members' participation in GA meeting, decision making, election and economic activities of dairy cooperatives.
Cooperatives are an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their economical, social and cultural needs and aspirations through jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprises (
It could be argued that members securing satisfactory services from their cooperatives through effective participation in cooperative affairs on their own need a number of efforts in the years to come. For instance, the participation of members in the general assembly meeting is poor everywhere even in advanced countries the attendance and participation used to be very low (
Absenteeism of members in the general body meeting may lead to the loss of democratic character that may result in dominance of the vested interest (
But, there are a number of problems in the performance of dairy cooperatives to achieve the above objectives. For example, there is less members’ participation in the supply of milk and democratic matters and unnecessary competition between members and primary dairy cooperatives. Besides to this, there is poor coordination between the dairy cooperatives and stakeholders are some of the missing parts in the effective operation of dairy cooperatives. Furthermore, there is no a research which is conducted in this research title (
North Gondar Administrative zone is one of the 10 administrative zones established under the Amahara National Regional State. It is far by 7
It has different types of primary and secondary Cooperatives which are organized and mainly engaged in agricultural output marketing, dairy product marketing, supply of agricultural input and consumer goods, saving and credit services and irrigation services for their members. It has also 11 primary dairy cooperatives with a total number of members of 5
The design of this study was mixed research type based on various data collection methods. With respect to the objectives and nature of the research questions of the study both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods were employed. The research was conducted in primary dairy cooperatives of north Gondar zone. The zone was selected purposively among other zone of Amhara region, The criteria for selection was, Familiarity of the researcher to the study areas, The development of Dairy coops in the zone was not as members and stakeholders expected, Poor service provision to the members and there was no research conducted specifically in the study areas and generally in the zone regarding to this title.
In North Gondar zone, there are 11 primary dairy cooperatives in 8 Districts. The total number of members of those dairy cooperatives was 5
As mentioned above, there were 5
Sample size of each woreda
|
|
|
|
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
1 | Abebech Seraqo | Chilga | 41 | 5 | 46 | 8 | 2 | 10 |
2 | Alemgenet | L/Armachiho | 55 | 5 | 60 | 10 | 3 | 13 |
3 | Mariseg | L/Armachiho | 31 | 7 | 38 | 6 | 2 | 8 |
4 | Tadila-Dibabo | Gondar Town | 43 | 4 | 47 | 8 | 2 | 10 |
5 | Arebaba | Gondar Town | 37 | 10 | 47 | 8 | 2 | 10 |
6 | Meseret | Gondar Zuria | 16 | 11 | 27 | 4 | 2 | 6 |
7 | Enesera-Behibret | Wogera | 31 | 7 | 38 | 6 | 2 | 8 |
8 | Edeget-Behibret | Denbia | 36 | 6 | 42 | 7 | 2 | 9 |
9 | Felege-hiwot | Dabat | 37 | 2 | 39 | 6 | 2 | 8 |
10 | Andinet | Dabat | 46 | 61 | 107 | 18 | 5 | 23 |
11 | Debark | Debark | 37 | 3 | 40 | 7 | 2 | 9 |
Total | 410 | 121 | 531 | 88 | 26 | 114 |
Source: North Gondar Zone and Gondar Town coop promotion Office (
Both qualitative and quantitative data was used in the study and data was collected from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data was collected from focus group discussion, key informants interview and responses obtained from sample respondents. Hence, members, management committees, control committees, employees of primary dairy cooperatives, cooperative officials at district and zonal levels were the sources of primary data.
Secondary data was collected from monthly, quarterly and annual report, minutes, audit reports of the cooperative societies. Moreover, it was collected from Woreda cooperative promotion office and zonal cooperative promotion office. In addition other reliable sources such as published and unpublished documents were used as a secondary source of data.
Qualitative data: For the sake of triangulation on data collected from member respondents,
Quantitative data: The primary quantitative data was collected from the respondents using a pre- tested, semi-structured interview schedule. This interview schedule for primary data included open-ended and closed-ended questions. Secondary quantitative data was collected through reviewing documents, such as, reports and documents of the societies, Woreda and zonal cooperative offices.
Pre- testing of structured interview schedule was done with 10 non-sample respondents for 2 days before formal data collection, to check its clarity and freeness of ambiguity. To make the communication easier during collection of data from the respondent member, semi-structured interview schedule was translated into local language of the respondents called Amharic.
Six enumerators who can speak the local language were recruited and trained about the data collection techniques for 2 days. They practiced how data will be collected from respondents along with pre-testing of semi-structured interview schedule. Continuous supervision was conducted by the researchers to reduce errors during data collection, to correct possible errors right on the spot and for the sake of maintaining the validity and reliability of the data.
Following the completion of the data collection, the data was coded and entered in to Statistical Package for Social Science (
Qualitative data was analyzed using different qualitative statistical procedures and methods. Descriptive tools was supplemented by qualitative analytical methods (mainly for those data acquired through the participatory/ qualitative methods) like interpretation and explanation of various opinions, views and concepts; and summarizing, categorizing, and presentation of these in convenient forms.
2
The Descriptive statistical tools were used to analyze the quantitative data. The important statistical measures that were used to summarize and categorize the data are means, percentages, frequencies, standard deviations, chi-square and T-test.
With regard to inferential analysis, Binary logit model was also another statistical technique used to analyze the influence among variables (
In this chapter, the results of focused group discussion, key informant interview and survey were presented and discussed hereunder.
It is the number of completed years of the respondents from the time of birth till the time of the survey conducted. The average age of the respondents was 46.07 years with a standard deviation of 8.
It was found that from the total respondents about 82.45% were males and the rest 17.54% were female. This implies the majority of the respondents were male and the involvement of females was very less. As far as their marital status is concerned, the respondents were categorized as single, married, divorced, and widowed. So, the result shows that from the total respondents 85.10% were married, 5.26% were not married,
With regarding to Religion, 97.
Summary of results of continuous explanatory variables
|
|
|
|
|
1 | Age of respondent (AGE) | 5.519** | 0.021 | |
2 | Proximity (DISMTC) | 1.433 | 0.235 | |
3 | Extension contact (EXC) | 3.357* | 0.071 | |
4 | Milking cow (MKS) | 5.682** | 0.020 |
Source: own survey, (
***, ** and * represent level of significant at 1%, 5% and 10% respectively.
Summary of results of discrete explanatory variables
|
|
|
|
|
1 | Educational level (EDULEV) | 43.902*** | 0.000 | |
2 | Transparency (TRANSPA) | 39.902*** | 0.000 | |
3 | Promoter support (PROMOSUP) | 15.805*** | 0.000 | |
4 | Transport Facility (TRANSPOR) | 0.195 | 0.659 | |
5 | Access training (TRAINING) | 3.951** | 0.047 | |
6 | Feed availability (FA) | 2.390 | 0.122 | |
7 | Raw milk price (RMP) | 15.805*** | 0.000 | |
8 | Credit access (CRACC) | 4.878** | 0.027 | |
9 | Patronage dividend (PATRONG) | 12.488*** | 0.000 |
Source: own survey, (
***, ** and * represent level of significant at 1%, 5% and 10% respectively.
In the preceding section, variables characterizing members’ participation were identified. However, in the logit model analysis, we emphasize on considering the combined effect of variables on members participation of dairy cooperative societies. Therefore, the emphasis is on analyzing the variables together, not one at a time. By considering the variables simultaneously, we are able to incorporate important information about their relationship.
Maximum likelihood estimates of the binary logit model
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
1 | AGE | -.032 | .036 | .797 | 1 | .372 | .968 |
2 | DISMTC | .013 | .039 | .112 | 1 | .737 | 1.013 |
3 | EDULEV | -.216 | .923 | .055 | 1 | .815 | .806 |
4 | TRANSPA | -1.016 | .753 | 1.817 | 1 | .178 | .362 |
5 | PROMOSUP | 1.433 | .959 | 2.233 | 1 | .135 | 4.192 |
6 | EXC | -.057 | .772 | .005 | 1 | .941 | .944 |
7 | TRANSPOR | -2.298 | .980 | 5.496 | 1 | .019** | .100 |
8 | TRAINING | -1.607 | .905 | 3.151 | 1 | .076* | .201 |
9 | FA | -.409 | .904 | .205 | 1 | .651 | .664 |
10 | RMP | -2.308 | .968 | 5.685 | 1 | .017** | .099 |
11 | MKS | 11.747 | 5.197 | 5.109 | 1 | .024** | 1.264 |
12 | CRACC | -2.936 | 1.247 | 5.540 | 1 | .019** | .053 |
13 | PATRONG | -2.992 | 1.228 | 5.933 | 1 | .015** | .050 |
Constant | 8.796 | 3.245 | 7.346 | 1 | .007 | 6.606E3 |
Source: Computed from the field survey data, 2015
2 Log Likelihood 74.970
Model chi-square 4
Percentage of correct prediction 75.6 %
***, ** and * represent level of significant at 1%, 5% and 10% respectively.
As indicated in table
The maximum likelihood estimates of the logistic regression model show that access of transport, access of training, raw milk price, milking cows, access of Credit and Patronage dividend were important factors influencing members participation in their democratic matters and business matters with significance of 5% and 10% probability level.
To study factors affecting members’ participation in their cooperative society, data gathered from 114 sampled cooperative members were subjected to logistic regression analysis. The statistical software used for analyzing the data was SPSS version 20 for windows. Prior to running the logistic regression model, both the continuous and discrete explanatory variables were checked for the existence of multi-collinearity problem. The problem arises when at least one of the independent variables is a linear combination of the others. The existence of multi-collinearity might cause the estimated regression coefficients to have the wrong signs and smaller t-ratios that might lead to wrong conclusions.
There are two measures that are often suggested to test the presence of multi-collinearity. These are: Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) for association among the continuous explanatory variables and contingency coefficients for dummy variables Gujarati (
The technique of Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) was employed to detect the problem of multi-collinearity among the continuous variables. According to Gujarati (
Where, Ri2 is the square of multiple correlation coefficients that results when one explanatory variable (Xi) is regressed against all other explanatory variables. The larger the value of VIF (Xi) the more “troublesome” or collinear the variable Xi is. As a rule of thumb, if the VIF of a variable exceeds 10, there is a multi-collinearity problem. The VIF values displayed below
|
|
|
|
1 | Age of respondent | 0.017 | 1.0003 |
2 | Proximity | 0.059 | 1.0035 |
3 | Milking cow | 0.038 | 1.0014 |
4 | Extension contact | 0.064 | 1.0041 |
Source: Computed from the field survey data, 2015
Similarly, contingency coefficients were computed to check the existence of multi-collinearity problem among the discrete explanatory variables. The contingency coefficient is computed as:
C = QUOTE _x0001_
Where, C= Coefficient of contingency,
χ2 = Chi-square random variable and
N = total sample size.
The decision rule for contingency coefficients states that when its value > 0.75, there is a problem of association between the discrete variables i.e. the value of contingency coefficients ranges between 0 and 1, with 0 indicating no association between the variables and the value > 0.75 or close to 1, indicating a high degree of association. The contingency coefficients value displayed below
Contingency coefficients for discrete explanatory variables of primary dairy cooperative societies
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | |
1 | 1 | .121 | .086 | .160 | .125 | .041 | .007 | .012 | .027 |
2 | 1 | .121 | .086 | .160 | .125 | .041 | .007 | .012 | |
3 | 1 | .105 | .001 | .246* | .148 | .207 | .235* | ||
4 | 1 | .389** | .140 | .329** | .214 | .472** | |||
5 | 1 | .139 | .614** | .356** | .204 | ||||
6 | 1 | .191 | .212 | .088 | |||||
7 | 1 | .409** | .237* | ||||||
8 | 1 | .030 | |||||||
9 | 1 |
Source: Computed from the field survey data, 2015
2. Transparency 7. Raw milk price
4. Transport Facility 9. Patronage dividend
5. Access training
Based on the VIF and contingency coefficient results, the data were found to have no serious problem of multi-collinearity in this case and therefore the continuous and discrete explanatory variables were retained in the model.
Active participation is expected from all members of dairy cooperatives in their democratic rights and business activities. As we see the study, Members’ factors such asage and educational level have an association with members’ participation of dairy cooperative societies. All institutional factors such as access to transport and feed availability have no significant influence on members’ participation of the societies. With regard to technical factors such astransparency, extension service and promoters’ support, they have a significant influence on members’ participation in democratic right practices and business activities of the societies
When we come to economic factors, there were raw milk price, number of milking cows, credit access and patronage dividend. All of the economic factors have a significant influence on members’ participation in democratic right practices and business activities of dairy cooperative societies. The binary logistic regression result also shows that from the hypothesized thirteen independent variables only six significantly influenced the members’ participation. The influence of independent variables on the dependent variable from strong to weak was milking cows, training access, transport access, raw milk price, credit access, and patronage dividend respectively.
There should be active participation of members in their democratic rights and business activities.
There should be access of transport to come and bring the raw milk to the cooperative. Because the cooperatives office distance is one factor for the member cooperatives to bring the raw milk to the dairy cooperatives on time. So the responsible body must think over it.
Training is also the main instrument for cooperatives to enlighten members about the benefits of members’ participation in democratic matters and business activities of cooperatives and every concerned body must think over it.
There was a member who didn’t have milking cow in dairy cooperatives. If anyone who has no milking cow/s he/she couldn’t be a membership of that dairy cooperative. So, the cooperatives and responsible bodies should revise and correct it because it is one criterion for membership.
There was no fair price for their raw milk that forced them to sell for others who have better price.
Besides to this, there was no credit access in different institutions to buy milking cows and milking equipments and even though there was a profit dividend in dairy cooperative societies, that much not satisfied and initiated the members as expected. So the concerned bodies including cooperative societies must consider about number of milking cows, credit access and patronage dividend for members to increase their participation in their cooperative societies.
First of all, we are pleased to thank University of Gondar for financing this project and giving the room for professional activities in line with the research agenda. It is also our pleasure to thank Governmental, Non-governmental and private Organizations’ in giving the relevant information and valuable inputs during the identification of the problem, need assessment and data collection of this research.