Abstract
This study was carried out to determine the impact of cooperative society among the fish farmers in Lagos State. A multi stage purposive sampling techniques was used to select five Local Government areas notable for fish farming business. 30 fish farmers were selected from each of the Local Government areas for cooperative society and 30 farmers from non cooperative society having a total of 150 respondents each. A well structured questionnaire was used to obtain information and 130 questionnaires were retrieved each from cooperative and non-cooperative members. Analytical techniques used include descriptive statistics and Tobit regression Analyses. The results show that the mean age of the farmers is 56 and 57 for cooperative and non-cooperative fish farmers, respectively. Majority (83%) and (93%) of the cooperative and non-cooperative fish farmers respectively were males. It was discovered that both farmers have an average of 8 household members. It was revealed that larger percentage of the cooperative fish farmers (50%) used amount N100,000 to N500,000 as the initial investment while (56%) of the non cooperative used the same amount as capital investment. The result of the Tobit regression analysis indicates that gender of farmers is significant at 5%, years of formal education; membership of cooperative and the cost of inputs were significant at 1%. Since majority were producing for profit making, it is suggested in the paper that government should increase the supply of credit to cooperative farmers and embark on enlightenment campaign to increase the participation of rural farmers in cooperative activities. Key words: Impact, cooperative society, fish farming, commercialisation, Lagos State.
Highlights
In developing countries in which Nigeria is one, agriculture dominates the economy of the nation
It has been established that about 70% of Nigeria population is engaged in agriculture while 90% of Nigeria total food production comes from small farms and 60% of the country population earn their living from these small farms
Inadequate finance has remained the most limiting problem of agricultural production. This is because capital is the most important input in agricultural production and its availability has remain a major problem to small scale farmers who account for the bulk of agricultural produce of the nation
Summary
In developing countries in which Nigeria is one, agriculture dominates the economy of the nation. One of the major problems of agricultural development in Nigeria is that of developing appropriate organization and institution to mobilize and induce members of the rural sector to a greater productive effort (ICA, 2010) As such rural farmers who are characterized. Cooperative societies in Nigeria perform multipurpose functions They are engaged in the production, processing, marketing, distribution and financing of agricultural products. Fish farmers in Lagos State are generally involves in one form of self help group or cooperative organization to carry out their production activities such as improvement on fish farming practices (that is, adoption of new technology) income growth and stability, business growth, purchase of inputs like fingerlings, feed and other basic needs such as clothing, food and shelter.
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