Effects of Co-operatives on the Livelihoods of Rural Households in Sirisia Constituency in Bungoma County,Kenya

Abstract

The cooperative movement is a key variable in the growth of the Kenyan economy especially in the rural households. Much of the developing world is experiencing rapid economic growth and the cooperatives aim to bring that growth in the rural areas. However, there has been a challenge in the administrative operations and sustainability of most Agrarian cooperative societies that have diversity in terms of membership. It‟s for this reason that this study sought to assess the effect of Agrarian Co-operatives in social-economic development in rural areas, specifically Sirisia constituency, Bungoma County. Specifically, the study aims at; identifying the various types of farm activities that members of co-operative societies in Bungoma County engage in; examining the forms of labour utilization in farm activities by members of co-operative societies in Bungoma County; establish the strategies used to market farm produce by members of the co-operative societies in Bungoma County; and ascertain the effect of cooperative societies on the livelihoods of the rural households in Bungoma county. The study employed descriptive survey research design. Both qualitative and quantitative data was collected. It targeted 534 members of the cooperative societies from Sirisia Constituency of Bungoma County. A sample of 107 respondents was selected from the target population using stratified random sampling techniques. Likert scale was used to measure the variables. The findings of the study revealed that the current Cooperative Societies have a very little positive impact on the livelihood of the community members. The Chi-square test results indicated that farmers in the community have not improved on the farming methods due to introduction of very expensive advanced farming methods not affordable to the common farmer. That the farming activity widely practiced in the community is crop/livestock farming which is done on small scale due to poor farming method used. Thus, casual labour is widely utilized as the most common form of labour as indicated by Chi-square results and this is due to small scale farming and lack of funds among cooperative societies. Also, the marketing strategies such as; Display; Exhibition; Technology; Media; and Quality improvement have a positive association with the sales made by the cooperative societies, yet some of the collapsing cooperative societies have not been marketing their products leading to poor sales hence deterioration of their existence. The study concluded that though the Agrarian Cooperative Societies have a significant positive association with the livelihood of the community, their positive impact on the community livelihood is not felt that there is need for the government to facilitate the Agrarian Cooperative Societies to avoid them from collapsing as much as they are much into the idea of devolution. Also, the collapsing Agrarian Cooperative Societies should consider doing intensive marketing of their farm products and services offered in order to attract more members to join them.