CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

The cooperative movement in a programme designed to bring independent persons together for the betterment of their economic conditions cooperative in one form or the other, have been used for capturing economic of scale effective mobilization of labor combination of Agro Industrial development programmes with the aim of promoting a more egalitarian distribution of economic growth in all communities. Hence, the well known slogan “self help through mutual help” by cooperators.

However, cooperatives in Onitsha north are yet to make the desired impact on the communities, there is then the need for an effective management  system that will help direct the activities of the cooperatives towards achieving their objectives, thereby endeavour to examine the extent to which poor management system retards the growth of the farmers cooperative societies in Onitsha north.

The viability of any cooperative society depends on the finance, educational competence and managerial skills of executives and cooperation of all the cooperatives. Therefore poor management have being the brain behind the low productivity and poor generation of revenue of some of the societies in Onitsha north local government area.

The importance of good management of farmers cooperative societies cannot be over emphasized, a good management capitalizes on the economic and social needs satisfaction of its members since when individual joins an organization, they often hope to achieve a personal goal but this cannot be possible without achieving organizational goals. Unfortunately, there is bifurcation i.e division of interest among members and executives. They lack effective management skill and most of them have never had the opportunity to attend seminars, workshop and symposium on management cooperatives societies.

Furthermore, farmers cooperatives society in Onitsha north lack good organizational structure. The principle of democracy in cooperative organization has rendered it playing toy and it has become perpetually unproductive as members with less investment in the cooperative often close their eyes to the risk of poor management strategies in a competitive economy like ours.

It is worthy to point that the researcher’s attempt to formulae strategies geared towards the successful implementation of the cooperative goals and objectives.

1.2    OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY              

The general objectives of this study is to scientifically and critically highlight managerial problems which affects the efficient functions of farmers cooperative society.

Specifically the objectives of the study includes

i.     analyzing how these management problems abort the well being of members of the cooperative.

ii.    How best these problems could be successfully eliminated.

iii.  The objectives is also o analyze how members react to these problems.

iv.  Finally, this project is aimed at identifying how lack of education contributes negatively on the managerial problems of farmers cooperative society.

1.3    STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The study is intended to investigate the major management problems and solutions of farmers cooperative societies in Onitsha north local government area of Anambra state.

It is interesting observed that cooperative societies have laudable objectives which they set for themselves but these objectives are never achieved because of the management problems facing them, such as inadequate funding by members, poor and ineffective management of the societies and not having enough members.

1.4    PURPOSE OF THE STUDY     

The research work is mainly for academic purpose, the reliability of many cooperative societies and the liquidation of some of them suggests that something is wrong, perhaps with their management system.

Therefore, it is the objectives of the researcher to find out some of the causes of these problems and suggest ways to bring about  a lasting improvement to farmers cooperative societies.

The researcher would look into the problems militating against the effective management of farmers cooperative societies in Onitsha north.

1.5    RESEARCH QUESTION   

The following research question will be aimed at finding answer to this study.

1.   Do unavailability of finance constitute a problem to the effective management of farmers cooperative society?

2.   Do lack of committees in decision making constitute a problem of the effective management of farmers cooperative society?

3.   Do lack of trained staff constitute a problem to the effective management of farmers cooperative society?

1.6    SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY          

This study is meant to aid cooperators gain more knowledge of what is expected of them for the success of the cooperative enterprise by:

1.   Determine some of the basic management flaws that are encountered by farmers cooperative societies in Onitshan north local government area.

2.   Determine the extent to which their problems constitute a hindrance to the efficiency of the societies.

3.   Seeking avenues through which such problems can be minimized.

4.   Finally based on the findings of the study, recommendations shows that the inefficiency of management should be rectified for the realization of the societies objectives.

This study also wants to ameliorate the bottleneck preventing farmers in cooperative from realizing the benefits of large scale production, marketing and credit facilities. Other benefits of the study includes:

1.   The enlightenment of cooperators on the need to be properly committed to the cooperative movement. This will help to make cooperators understand what is expected of them in cooperation and how to cooperate for effectiveness.

2.   It is envisaged that cooperative organizers will gain more insight on how to organize and manage the farmers cooperative societies more profitable after going through their report.

The government will come to see the need to have well trained cooperative leaders to champion the affairs of farmers cooperative societies. They will also be more willing to remove the administrative bottlenecks that militate loan disbursement to farmers cooperative societies. This will come about when the suggestion of this research is implemented

1.8    DEFINITION OF TERMS

1.     Cooperative Society: This is an association of persons who join together either formally or informally adhoc or permanent basis for legal or illegal or socially accepted or unaccepted actions to fulfill certain aims (Obodoechi, 2011).

2.     Farmers Cooperative Societies: It is a cooperative society that is made up of only farmers to cater for the need of its members.

3.     Farmers Multi-purpose Cooperative Society: This is cooperative society that performs more than one function e.g food production and marketing.

4.     Identification: In relation to this research it shows certain phenomenon that are detrimental to the management of cooperative.

5.     Management: It is act of planning, organizing, staffing, directing, controlling and budgeting in a farmers cooperative society so as to realize its objectives.

6.     Problems: This refers to those objectives and concerns that affect the performance of the management of the society.

7.     Trained Staff: This refers to anybody who has undergone professional training in any cooperative institution.

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