ASSESSMENT OF WOMEN PARTICIPATION IN AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVE IN ZARIA AND ENVIRON, KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study assessed women participation in agricultural cooperative society in Zaria environment of Kaduna State Nigeria. The objectives of the study were to examine the socio-economic characteristics of women participating in agricultural cooperative society; identify the business activities that women engage in as co-operative members; evaluate the annual income of members of the cooperative society and identify the challenges faced by women as members of the cooperative. A survey research design was adopted and four (4) women agricultural cooperatives societies were purposively selected. In each of the cooperative societies, 25 members were randomly selected given a total of 100 respondents and the data was collected using structured questionnaire. Out of the 100 questionnaires distributed to respondents only 95 were retrieved and used for data analysis. Simple descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage) and inferential statistics (Chi-Square) were used to analyze the data. Results revealed that 41.05% of women in agricultural cooperative were within the age of 26-35 years and 71.58% were married with 36.84% having a family size of 10 and above. On the type of business activities, majority (93.68%) indicated that they were engaged in crop production. The result on the annual income of members showed a significant difference before and after joining the cooperative. Yet, insufficient capital, poor market and low level of education were identified as the major challenges faced by members of the cooperatives. The study recommended that the Government and non-governmental organization should partner with women agricultural cooperative society to improve their capital base, cooperative members should organized adult education programme, seminar or workshop to improve the members’ education and entrepreneurial skills.