The Effect of Cooperative Membership on Coffee Producer’s Income in Anfillo and Sayo District of Kellem Wollega Zone, Western Ethiopia

Abstract

This study was conducted to analyze the effect of cooperative membership on coffee producer’s income in Anfillo and Sayo district, Western Ethiopia with specific objectives of assessing distribution of benefit among coffee value chain actors and identifying the role of cooperative on income of coffee producer’s in the study area. The data were collected from both primary and secondary sources. Two stage sampling technique was employed to select coffee producer households for the study. The primary data for this study were collected from 216 (101 members, 115 non-members of cooperatives) coffee farmers. Descriptive statistics, value chain analysis and econometric methods were employed to analyze the data. Accordingly, from the total members of cooperative (101), only 12 (11.9%) were female headed; this indicated they could not actively participate in institutional and organizational activities and majority of the social work has been dominated by male household.  Therefore, policy aimed to accelerate women participation in the area could be successful if these factors and problems are taken into consideration. Major coffee value chain actors in the district were input suppliers, producers, collectors, cooperatives, unions, wholesalers, coffee pot makers, retailers, exporters and consumers. As the result of marketing margin indicated, hence, they sell directly to consumer and there was no intermediately along the channel; best outlet channel for producers were channel I. As the result of OLS regression indicated, coffee produced and sold is positively influenced by area of land allocated to coffee, membership of coffee cooperative, total numbers of labor force in the family, education level positively and time of coffee sale negatively; while, revenue and net coffee income is positively influenced by membership of coffee cooperative, levels of education, numbers of labor force in the family, area of land allocated to coffee and access to credit service; but, negatively influenced by time of coffee sale.