About 70 per cent of rural dwellers in developing countries rely on the agricultural sector for their livelihood.

Accordingly, smallholder farming in Africa is perceived as a livelihood option to poverty reduction and rural development goals.

However, in sub-Saharan Africa, smallholder farm families are still more vulnerable than other categories of workers.

Smallholder farmers are most often the lowest income earners as they tend to live suffer hunger and malnutrition, experience high levels of food insecurity and in live in abject poverty.

Smallholder farmers are still pressured by various socio-economic challenges arising from many developmental gaps.

Thus, the need for the promotion and formation of agricultural cooperatives were identified to have the potential in filling some of the developmental gaps, while also ameliorating the various constraints encountered by smallholder farmers in facilitating improvements in their social and economic development.

Formation of agricultural cooperatives (ACs) play an important role in supporting smallholder producers and marginalised groups such as young people and women.

They empower their members economically and socially to create sustainable rural employment through business models that are resilient to economic and environmental shocks.

They offer small agricultural producers opportunities and a wide range of services, including improved access to markets, information, communications, technologies, credit, training and warehouses.

They also facilitate smallholder producers’ participation in decision making at all levels, support them in securing land-use rights and negotiate better terms for engagement in contract farming and lower prices for agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertiliser and equipment.

Particularly in poor continents such as Africa, membership-based rural producer organisations such as cooperatives, peasant associations and unions can help alleviate rural poverty.

The main purpose of agricultural cooperative is to improve the conditions of their members.

Agricultural cooperative institutions are intended to give smallholder farmers a greater share of the value chain of the products they produce.

They are meant to allow farmers to negotiate more effectively with the buyers and have greater access to better networks and new skills through capacity development. 
These cooperatives have the potential to grow not only themselves, but also the communities where they are located.

The establishment of agricultural cooperatives has been extensively encouraged as an agricultural development policy intervention that will serve farmers to manage multiple production and marketing difficulties.

Agricultural cooperatives are crucial in supply chains to help farmers improve on their farming activities and ensure they move towards achieving sustainable agriculture and food security.

Also, they can serve as catalyst for economic growth because members come together to coordinate substantial savings and improve bargaining influence.

Nowadays, agricultural cooperatives are more and more viewed as catalysts to encourage better agricultural knowledge and eradicate food insecurity and poverty.

Cooperative associations tend to enhance crop yields, household earnings, and household resources as well as lower transaction costs to access input and output markets.

Constraints

Inadequate access to grants namely donations, supports, and small resource base are viewed as key institutional constraints faced by cooperatives.

Limited linkages of the cooperatives with stakeholders such as extension agencies, trade unions, and other community-based organisations that are essential in providing support and services that would assist cooperative organisations in rendering more effective support services and in meeting the needs of their members. 

Moreover, weak marketing arrangements and insufficient government assistance also hinder the activities of farmer cooperatives.

Collective marketing and bargaining are among the underlying reasons for the formation of farmer groups and cooperative organisations since adequate access to both informal and formal markets beyond the farm gate is a major challenge smallholder farmers face.

For agricultural cooperatives to thrive, governments and other stakeholders must recognise the existence of these groups, assist them to be formalised and create a synergy with them in channelling support meant for smallholder farmers in the area.

Unfavourable government policy and inadequate training for members have been identified to affect the effective operations of agric cooperatives.

Accordingly, government policy is the expected vehicle to facilitate the effective functioning of agricultural cooperatives and development in the country.

Lack of education and training prevent cooperative members from exploiting opportunities to develop action programmes that would facilitate the desired and sustainable changes.

Recommendations

In order for agricultural cooperatives to thrive, governments and related stakeholders must recognise the existence of these groups, assist them in becoming formalised as appropriate institutions, and form a synergy with them in channelling the support meant for smallholder farmers in the rural communities.  

Additionally, government and other relevant stakeholders need to provide agricultural cooperatives with greater access to grants and donations that will help improve the resource base of the cooperatives so that they will be able to adequately support their members with funds that will enhance the entrepreneurial skills and livelihoods of their members.

Furthermore, policy aimed at strengthening the respective linkages and synergies between the agricultural cooperatives and other stakeholders, such as extension agencies, trade unions, and other community-based organisations that are essential for providing support and services, that will enable cooperative organisations to render more effective support services and meet the needs of their members should be promoted.

The writer is the Registrar, Chartered Institute of Agriculture, Ghana
Email: kashiagbor@yahoo.com