Success and Failure of Cooperative Marketing Societies in India: A State-wise Analysis

Abstract

The cooperative marketing societies in India have shown very slow progress and they are beset with multifarious deficiencies mainly due to their confinement to few agricultural commodities, lack of storage facilities, lack of financial resources, inefficient management, untimely payment for the farmers’ produce, inadequate credit facilities, predominance of vested interests, lack of loyalty among the members as well as staff of cooperative societies, interference and influence of private traders, etc. Due to lack of expertise in handling various business activities, the co-operative marketing in several states is not very effective. In several cases, the governing bodies of these cooperative marketing are unaware of the market forces. Lack of education, dedication and training of the managers are some other reasons for the poor performance of these cooperatives engaged in the marketing of agricultural produce. This coupled with dishonesty and malpractices indulged in by those associated with the functioning of cooperatives have led to their inefficient performance. There are several instances where farmers intend to sell their produce to cooperative societies but because of significant delay in receiving payment from the societies farmers divert their produce to private traders. One of the suggestions of the study is that there should be higher representation of marginal and small farmers in the membership profile of cooperative marketing societies operating in India. Private traders generally provide several facilities including drinking water to the farmers and such facilities normally should also be extended by the cooperative marketing societies but majority of the cooperatives engaged in marketing of farmers’ produce do not extend such facilities. The need of the hour is to overcome this problem and extend as much facilities to farmer members as possible.