FACTORS INFLUENCING SMALL SCALE FAMERS PARTICIPATION IN COOPERATIVE SOCIETIES IN GOMBE STATE, NIGERIA

The study examined the factors influencing small scale farmers’ participation in cooperative societies in Gombe State, Nigeria. Multistage sampling technique was employed in selecting 234 respondents. Primary data were collected using structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics and logit regression analysis The finding revealed that majority (50.7%, 74.4%, 80%, 64.3% and 53.3%) of the respondents were within the age bracket of (42-51 years) with a mean age of 44 years, male, married, had (5-12 persons) and a mean of 9 persons per household and had attended tertiary levels of education, respectively. The finding also showed that majority (76.2%, 53.3% and 52%) of the respondents had access to markets, extension service and had a mean yield of 94 bags of produce, respectively. The result also shows that respondents agrees that cooperatives subsidizes farm input prices (=4.4), provides loans (=4.3), increase their access to market (=3.5) and extension (=3.2) among others. The logit regression analysis shows that quantity of farm produce harvested (0.0546378) and years of membership (0.6844786) were positive and significant (P<0.05) in influencing respondents’ participation in cooperatives. On the other hand, inadequate sensitization, funding and bureaucratic bottleneck were the major constraints to cooperative participation which were ranked 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively. The study concludes that quantity of produce harvested and years of membership had significant influence on farmers participation in cooperatives in the study area. The study recommended that cooperative societies should engaged in sensitizing farmers in order to increase their level of awareness, cooperative respondents should extend the skills and knowledge acquired to other farmers and government should employ extension agents, provide inputs and incentives to farmers to boost their production level.