Do collective actions reduce household poverty? Evidence from empirical evaluation of farmers cooperatives in East Shewa, Ethiopia

Adem Nemo Eresso and Yared Tefera

International Journal of Social Economics, 2024, vol. 52, issue 5, 715-729

Abstract: Purpose - Cooperatives are used as one of the strategic tools to reach smallholder farmers and reduce household poverty through augmenting access to inputs, technologies, farm productivity and markets. Our study aims to investigate the impacts of the Meki Batu Cooperative Union on reducing household poverty. Design/methodology/approach - This study employed a cross-sectional survey of households in the Dugda district of the East Shewa zone in the Oromia region. A two-stage sampling design was applied, where four rural Kebeles were first randomly picked, followed by stratified random samples of 217 producers comprising 100 members and 117 non-members of cooperatives. The standard probit model was estimated with a set of observable factors. Propensity score matching (PSM), doubly robust inverse probability weighting and treatment effect estimation were performed along with matching techniques. Findings - The results reveal that education, livestock assets, access to irrigation and extension contact positively determine participation in cooperatives. As the income-based poverty attests, the poverty gap was reduced by 5.9–6.3% and the severity of poverty by 3.7–3.8% due to the cooperative membership. Research limitations/implications - The investigation suggests the need for continued and comprehensive social services to address development challenges through the facilitation of producers’ engagement in collective actions and agribusinesses. Originality/value - Existing research evidence is inconclusive with the view of impacts of collective actions on housed welfare in Ethiopia. This study empirically tested the impacts in connection to the production and marketing of high-value crops. Peer review - The peer review history for this article is available at:https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2024-0231

Keywords: Impact; Farmer cooperatives; Membership; Poverty gap; Severity of poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:ijsepp:ijse-03-2024-0231

DOI: 10.1108/IJSE-03-2024-0231

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Social Economics is currently edited by Professor Terence Garrett

More articles in International Journal of Social Economics from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().