Cooperative Efficiency and Its Effect On Livelihood Diversification Among Poultry Farm Holders: Empirical Study from South West Nigeria

Abstract

Cooperative membership and livelihood diversification has been observed to enhance improved households’ economic situations, while littl is known about their interplay when they both occurs. This study was hence conducted to investigate the incidence of cooperative efficiency, and how it influences livelihood diversification alongside some other crucial/imperative hypothesized determinant factors, using data collected from 210 poultry farm holders via multistage sampling procedure and analysed using econometric, parametric, and non-parametric analytical tools at 95% confidence interval. Result showed that; majorities of the cooperator respondents are satisfied with; Access to loan (72.38%), Loan repayment (67.62%), Transportation (68.10%), Marketing (67.14%), Training (69.5%), patronage (70%), and Political interference (69.05%) while a relatively large proportion of the respondents (59.04%) are diversified, while a majority (89.52%) of this diversified category secondarily diversifies into non farming activities. Also, the proportion of the cooperator diversified poultry farming household (59.41) narrowly exceeds the noncooperator category (58.72) hence, further econometric analysis conducted showed that; gender of household head, level of formal education, primary source of labour, farming as primary occupation, and Cooperative membership negatively influenced livelihood diversification, but otherwise for multidimensional poverty, all significant at 10%, 5%, 1%, 1%, 10%, and 1% probabilistic levels respectively. Finding based recommendations were further proffered.