Prospects of Cooperative Society for Sustainable Agriculture Among Smallholder Farmers in Benue State, Nigeria

The study was conducted to ascertain prospects of cooperative society for sustainable agriculture among smallholder farmers in Benue state, Nigeria. Data were collected from eighty (80) respondents using questionnaire. Frequency, percentage, mean score and factor analysis were used for analyzing data collected for the study. Findings indicate that about 39% of the respondents were aged between 41 and 50 years while 7.5% were aged above 60 years, among others. A greater percentage (63.8%) of the respondents were males with majority (88.8%) being married, 40% of them acquired tertiary education with 50.0% having a household size of 1-5 persons while 68.8% had farming as a major occupation. Savings and contributions (57.0%) were major sources of fund for cooperative society. Major reasons for joining cooperative society were access to credit facilities (38.8%), greater access to farm inputs (26.2%), raise standard of living (11.2%), among others. Results on benefits of cooperatives society include access to information (94.5%), increases members income and food security (91.8%), high productivity/ increase in output (90.4%), easy access to loan facilities (89.0%), improved market competition and expanded market opportunities (89.0%), pulling of resources together (86.3%), easy access to credit facilities (80.8%), greater access to farm inputs (75.3%), availability of labour (61.5%), etc. Factors influencing performance of cooperative society were named institutional, funding and input- related variables. The study recommends that there is need for timely provision of farm inputs for the farmers in order to increase productivity for sustainable agriculture. Adequate awareness campaign is needed in ensuring that farmers become members of cooperative society so as to pull their resources together for greater productivity