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Determinants of the Performance of Farmers' Cooperatives in Ethiopia

Received: 16 October 2024     Accepted: 6 November 2024     Published: 26 November 2024
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Abstract

Farmers' cooperatives play a crucial role in Ethiopia's agricultural development by enhancing market access, providing inputs and financial services, and improving smallholder farmers' bargaining power. Despite their potential, many cooperatives struggle due to economic, governance, and environmental challenges. While various studies have explored these issues, an up-to-date and comprehensive synthesis of the literatures is essential to aggregate those findings and explore the common themes towards the key determinants. Therefore, this review synthesizes over two decades of researches to explore the determinants of the farmers’ cooperative performance in Ethiopia, focusing on economic, institutional, social, environmental, and technological factors. Access to credit, effective governance, and social cohesion emerge as critical determinants of cooperative success. Additionally, external support and technological adoption enhance their growth, while environmental factors such as climate variability present significant risks. Then, the review concludes, most of the cooperatives perform below the expected, that collaborative work between the members themselves and the government is invaluable for increasing the efficiency of cooperatives, and in turn, achieves the ultimate goals of improving the farmers overall wellbeing. Hence, the review would like to provide policy recommendations such as strengthening cooperative governance structures, enhancing credit access, promoting adoption & technology provision, and encouraging sustainable land management practices which would increase resilience and productivity of cooperative members.

Published in International Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (Volume 12, Issue 4)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijebo.20241204.11
Page(s) 183-186
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Agricultural Development, Cooperative Performance, Determinants, Smallholder Farmers, Ethiopia

References
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[2] Abebaw, D., & Haile, M. G. (2013). The impact of cooperatives on agricultural technology adoption: Empirical evidence from Ethiopia. Food Policy, 38, 82-91.
[3] Adane, A., Melak, D., & Mekuria, W. (2020). Determinants to performance of multipurpose agricultural cooperatives (MPACs): a case of Gondar zuria district, north Gondar, Ethiopia. International Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 8(2), 23-30.
[4] Balcha, E., Menghistu, H. T., & Zenebe, A. (2023). Climate-smart agricultural practices: A case of dairy cooperative farmers in Northern Ethiopia. Journal of Agricultural Research, 45(3), 249-260.
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[6] CGIAR. (2023). Drivers of agricultural cooperative formation and farmers' membership and patronage decisions in Ethiopia. CGIAR Research,
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[8] Deressa, T., Hassan, R. M., Ringler, C., Alemu, T., & Yesuf, M. (2008). Analysis of the determinants of farmers' choice of adaptation methods and perceptions of climate change in the Nile Basin of Ethiopia. Global Environmental Change, 19(2), 248-255.
[9] Essa, M., & Surur, B. (2021). Evaluating Factors that Affect the Performance of Farmer’s Cooperative Union in Siltie Zone, Ethiopia. International Journal of Management (IJM), 12(4), 98-115.
[10] Francesconi, G. N., & Heerink, N. (2010). Ethiopian agricultural cooperatives in an era of global commodity exchange: Does organizational form matter? Journal of African Economies, 20(1), 153-177.
[11] Gashaw, B. A., & Kibret, S. M. (2018). Factors influencing farmers’ membership preferences in agricultural cooperatives in Ethiopia. American Journal of Rural Development, 6(3), 94-103.
[12] Gebremedhin, B., Hoekstra, D., & Tegegne, A. (2014). Sustainable agricultural intensification and its role in rural transformation. International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability, 12(3), 173-186.
[13] Gezahegn, T. W., Van Passel, S., Berhanu, T., D’haese, M., & Maertens, M. (2020). Do bottom-up and independent agricultural cooperatives really perform better? Insights from a technical efficiency analysis in Ethiopia. Agrekon, 59(1), 93-109.
[14] Guyalo, K., & Ifa, B. (2023). Impact of agricultural cooperatives on the food security status of smallholder farmers in Eastern Ethiopia. Cogent Economics & Finance, 11, 2237716.
[15] Haile, D. D. M. (2016). A study on factors affecting farmers’ cooperative membership increment in Bench Maji Zone, Southwestern Ethiopia. Sustainable Development, 6(2).
[16] Kebede, D. A., & Lemma, M. (2020). Determinants of Marketing Supply Chain of Agricultural Cooperatives Output in Ethiopia. Journal of International Trade, Logistics and Law, 6(1), 23-32.
[17] Kidane, H., Lemma, T., & Tesfay, G. (2018). Determinants of smallholder farmers participation in seed producing cooperatives in Southern Zone of Tigray, Ethiopia. Journal of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development, 10(4), 75-83.
[18] Mojo, D., Fischer, C., & Degefa, T. (2017). The determinants and economic impacts of membership in coffee farmer cooperatives: recent evidence from rural Ethiopia. Journal of Rural studies, 50, 84-94.
[19] Sebhatu, K. T., Gezahegn, T. W., Berhanu, T., Maertens, M., Van Passel, S., & D’Haese, M. (2021). Exploring variability across cooperatives: economic performance of agricultural cooperatives in northern Ethiopia. International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, 24(3), 397-419.
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Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Agegnehu, M. Z. (2024). Determinants of the Performance of Farmers' Cooperatives in Ethiopia. International Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 12(4), 183-186. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijebo.20241204.11

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    ACS Style

    Agegnehu, M. Z. Determinants of the Performance of Farmers' Cooperatives in Ethiopia. Int. J. Econ. Behav. Organ. 2024, 12(4), 183-186. doi: 10.11648/j.ijebo.20241204.11

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    AMA Style

    Agegnehu MZ. Determinants of the Performance of Farmers' Cooperatives in Ethiopia. Int J Econ Behav Organ. 2024;12(4):183-186. doi: 10.11648/j.ijebo.20241204.11

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijebo.20241204.11,
      author = {Melesse Zeleke Agegnehu},
      title = {Determinants of the Performance of Farmers' Cooperatives in Ethiopia
    },
      journal = {International Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization},
      volume = {12},
      number = {4},
      pages = {183-186},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijebo.20241204.11},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijebo.20241204.11},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijebo.20241204.11},
      abstract = {Farmers' cooperatives play a crucial role in Ethiopia's agricultural development by enhancing market access, providing inputs and financial services, and improving smallholder farmers' bargaining power. Despite their potential, many cooperatives struggle due to economic, governance, and environmental challenges. While various studies have explored these issues, an up-to-date and comprehensive synthesis of the literatures is essential to aggregate those findings and explore the common themes towards the key determinants. Therefore, this review synthesizes over two decades of researches to explore the determinants of the farmers’ cooperative performance in Ethiopia, focusing on economic, institutional, social, environmental, and technological factors. Access to credit, effective governance, and social cohesion emerge as critical determinants of cooperative success. Additionally, external support and technological adoption enhance their growth, while environmental factors such as climate variability present significant risks. Then, the review concludes, most of the cooperatives perform below the expected, that collaborative work between the members themselves and the government is invaluable for increasing the efficiency of cooperatives, and in turn, achieves the ultimate goals of improving the farmers overall wellbeing. Hence, the review would like to provide policy recommendations such as strengthening cooperative governance structures, enhancing credit access, promoting adoption & technology provision, and encouraging sustainable land management practices which would increase resilience and productivity of cooperative members. 
    },
     year = {2024}
    }
    

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    T1  - Determinants of the Performance of Farmers' Cooperatives in Ethiopia
    
    AU  - Melesse Zeleke Agegnehu
    Y1  - 2024/11/26
    PY  - 2024
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    DO  - 10.11648/j.ijebo.20241204.11
    T2  - International Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
    JF  - International Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
    JO  - International Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
    SP  - 183
    EP  - 186
    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2328-7616
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijebo.20241204.11
    AB  - Farmers' cooperatives play a crucial role in Ethiopia's agricultural development by enhancing market access, providing inputs and financial services, and improving smallholder farmers' bargaining power. Despite their potential, many cooperatives struggle due to economic, governance, and environmental challenges. While various studies have explored these issues, an up-to-date and comprehensive synthesis of the literatures is essential to aggregate those findings and explore the common themes towards the key determinants. Therefore, this review synthesizes over two decades of researches to explore the determinants of the farmers’ cooperative performance in Ethiopia, focusing on economic, institutional, social, environmental, and technological factors. Access to credit, effective governance, and social cohesion emerge as critical determinants of cooperative success. Additionally, external support and technological adoption enhance their growth, while environmental factors such as climate variability present significant risks. Then, the review concludes, most of the cooperatives perform below the expected, that collaborative work between the members themselves and the government is invaluable for increasing the efficiency of cooperatives, and in turn, achieves the ultimate goals of improving the farmers overall wellbeing. Hence, the review would like to provide policy recommendations such as strengthening cooperative governance structures, enhancing credit access, promoting adoption & technology provision, and encouraging sustainable land management practices which would increase resilience and productivity of cooperative members. 
    
    VL  - 12
    IS  - 4
    ER  - 

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