An analysis of agricultural co-operative society and economic development in Ovia South West communities of Edo State, Nigeria

A study was conducted on an analysis of Agricultural cooperative society and economic development in Ovia South West communities of Edo State, Nigeria. The objectives were to examine the contributions of cooperative society to economic development as well as identify the problems facing the cooperative society in the study area. Data was collected from sixty-three (63) respondents through questionnaire and oral interview. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency tables, percentages, mean dispersion and standard deviation. The result showed that the mean (y=3.71) of respondents agreed that cooperative society had contributed meaningfully to agricultural development, while a mean(y=3.43) of respondents agreed that cooperative society created opportunities to job seekers in agricultural enterprises. In addition, the study also revealed that 22% of the respondents had primary education, 41.3% of the respondents had secondary education, while 11.1% had Higher National Diploma(HND) certificate. It was however recommended that Agricultural Development Programmes (ADP) should assist cooperative societies to be linked with credit Institutions such as Bank, Micro finance banks like Lift Above Poverty Organization (LAPO) in Benin City for easy access to more credits facilities by the respondents. Secondly, cooperatives should undergo regular trainings and workshops on management and administration of cooperatives to be able to contribute positively to economic and agricultural development. Regular changes of the executive officers of the cooperatives can help to solve the problem of incompetent leadership after annual general meetings on three years tenure.