Leveraging on membership in agricultural cooperatives to alleviate abject poverty among smallholder farming households in Nigeria

Abstract

Agricultural cooperatives are frequently considered an essential framework that might help smallholder farmers overcome certain obstacles. This study investigated the determinants of agricultural cooperative membership and its impact on the poverty status of smallholder farming households in Nigeria. Primary data were gathered from 240 smallholder farming households using a multistage sampling procedure. The Foster, Greer, and Thorbecke (FGT) Index and the Endogenous Switching Probit Regression Model (ESPM) were used to analyze the data. The study concluded that most rural households were male (86 %), small scale, and at the prime of their productive age (57 years). The result further revealed that most (57.5 %) of the respondents are members of agricultural cooperatives. The results of the FGT poverty measure also indicate that the majority (67 %) of the smallholder farming households were poor. The result of the ESPM revealed that gender, years of education, land ownership, household size, years of farming experience, access to credit, and asset ownership significantly influence the membership of smallholder farmers in agricultural cooperatives. The second stage of the ESPM revealed that gender, education, land ownership, household size, years of farming experience, access to credit, asset ownership, and membership in other forms of cooperatives significantly affect poverty status among the agricultural cooperative members. Meanwhile, among non-members of agricultural cooperatives, variables such as gender, years of education, land ownership, farm size, access to credit, membership in other forms of cooperatives, and asset ownership significantly affect the poverty status of smallholder farmers. These findings reveal that there is a statistically significant relationship between the poverty status of smallholder farming households and their membership in agricultural cooperatives.