Determinants to Performance of Multipurpose Agricultural Cooperatives (MPACs): A Case of Gondar Zuria District, North Gondar, Ethiopia

Abstract

ooperatives enable people to improve their social and economic conditions by pooling their resource and efforts together in ways that are more productive than working individually. The aim of this study was to identify determinants to performance of MPACs. Multistage sampling was employed to select study area and sample households. Study area selected purposively because of its accessibility and relatively large numbers of functional cooperatives. Primary data were collected from 122 members of sample cooperatives those were selected using simple random sampling proportional to size of members in the cooperative through semi-structured interview schedule and key informant interview and focus discussion. Moreover, secondary data were obtained from audit reports of sample cooperatives. The collected data entered to SPSS version 20. Descriptive analysis such as mean, percentage and frequency were analyzed along with probit model. However, their moderate involvement in service provision of agricultural input distribution cooperatives output marketing service in the study area was found as it was not outstanding that majority of the cooperatives did not carry out purchasing of farmers output. The model result revealed that from thirteen explanatory variables included in the model for analysis numbers of shareholding in cooperative, membership to union and working relationship in cooperative were found to be significantly and positively related to members’ satisfaction to overall performance of MPACs. On the other hand, family size of household, cooperative age and degree of corruption in cooperative were found to be significantly influence degree of member’s satisfaction to their cooperative overall performance negatively. Therefore, cooperative management and staff members should strive to render valuable services to its members.