CO - OPERATION AND AGRICULTURE (TAAVON)
Year:2010 | Volume:21 | Issue:1|Papers Count:10

The objective of this study was to shed light on the present role of rural cooperatives in marketing of agricultural products and their potential to expand such activities. The data were collected from a randomly selected sample of cooperative members (765) in rural cooperatives (17) of Fars province. The required information was collected through questionnaires which were filled by selected cooperative members of Shiraz, Darab, Eghlid, Kazeroun and Marvdasht in 2005. For more accurate investigation of member’s characteristics in tendency to participate in participating marketing and sales of products through cooperatives, diagnosis-analysis method was used. The results of study revealed that rural cooperatives were active, to some extent, in supplying inputs such as fertilizer and pesticides but did not participated in marketing of agricultural products. In spite of this, cooperative members had tendency to market their products through their cooperatives because of advantages such as higher prices and access to a fair marketing channel. The results of the study also indicated that most of cooperative members because of financial troubles are not able to store and market their products after harvest and because of vast amount of intermediate dealers, a considerable amount of harvest are prepurchased before or after harvesting. The most important limitations that cooperative faces in marketing are lack of financial and physical facilities. In conclusion the article suggests solutions for these limitations.

The current paper is the result of a field survey to investigate methods for enhancing cash-raising methods for cooperatives in Iran. Because of limited resources and funds, according to Human Development Index (HDI) the four provinces of Isfahan, Qazvin, Mazandaran and Azerbaijan were selected. The sampling method is random and the sampling tool is a questionnaire and Cochran formula was used to determine sample volume. An open questionnaire and interviews with managers of cooperatives and experts of cooperation sector was used to classify the current issues and methods of cash-raising and then the final questionnaire with 51 questions was designed according to Likert spectrum.The results showed that cooperatives are being governed by traditional models and in regard of cash-raising, they lack methods, organizations and flexibility that are required and by the current trend it would not be possible to achieve the goal of obtaining 25% of the nation’s economy.

Development of students’ organizations is one of the Ministry of Education executive policies, with the purpose of encouraging students’ participation and their social and conceptual capabilities. School cooperatives as a type of these organizations face issues & problems in execution and organizing. Therefore this research has been carried out with the purpose of investigating the extension & development patterns of school cooperatives in 2009.This research is applied, quantitative and somewhat prospective. The research’s statistical population includes students that are a member of school cooperatives board of directors that were placed into census because of limited numbers. Questionnaire and interviews were used to collect data and validity of these was approved by experts, managers and researchers. Research reliability was also measured by Cronbach Alpha coefficient which was assessed approximately 79%.The results show that it was observed no significant relationship between the respondents’ personal variables and cooperative characteristics with successfulness, unsuccessfulness and development of school cooperatives. In classification of factors affecting cooperatives success, factor analysis type R was used and it was found out that support (19.89% variance), training (14.52% variance), performance-economy (12.42% variance), society (11.96% variance), efficiency- information (10.64% variance) factors were affecting cooperatives success, a total of 69.45% variance. Factors contributing to cooperatives unsuccessfulness also comprise of program-structure (16.27% variance), supervision-law (15.19% variance), time-administrative (14.90% variance), need assessment-participation (14.57% variance) and objective-function (10% variances) factors that in sum indicates 70.96% variance of unsuccessfulness. Effective factors on cooperatives development were also classified as motivation-awareness (21.81% variance), education (14.49% variance), program-development (13.52% variance), support (12.53% variance), responsibility (10.88% variance) and peer groups (6.41% variance) factors that in sum indicates 79.68% variance of factors contributing to cooperatives’ development.

As the main reason of forming rural production cooperatives is to improve undesirable agriculture operation system & balanced development, the current study review the role of social strategies to promote wheat production cooperatives in South Khorasan province. This survey was performed through descriptive-correlation method. The total number of experts working in the production cooperatives of the province (37 persons) formed the statistical population of the study. Reliability of the study questionnaire was confirmed by a group of agriculture education and extension experts and professors. Also according to Cronbach Alpha coefficient of 0.86 the validity of the questionnaire was approved.Results indicate that among social solutions, managing director type of cooperation with members of the cooperatives, input distribution factors and promoting education & extension are among the most important social strategies affecting the performance of rural production cooperatives. Also there is significant relation between average annual wheat production of the cooperatives and the factor of members’ participation.

Employment & unemployment are among the main issues in economy, as increasing employment & decreasing unemployment rate are one of the most important factors of development in any society. This is ever more important in the issue of employment of university graduates. Specialized agricultural cooperatives as partnership organizations have remarkable potential in quantitative and qualitative improvement of agri-products as well as entrepreneurship for graduates of agriculture. As a result, development of these cooperatives seems to be a necessity. In the current study, the tendency of agriculture graduates towards participation in cooperative sector has been investigated to study the causes of their inclination towards joining this section. This study is a descriptive-analytic research and correlative and cooperative methods have been used. The subject group consist of 200 persons were selected according to proportional random sampling method out of graduates and senior students of agriculture in the academic year 2008-09 and data was collected by questionnaires. Spss 11.5 computer program was used to process both descriptive and analytic data.The most important result of the descriptive approach was that nearly half of the subjects’ tendency towards cooperatives was moderate. The correlative analysis showed that the tendencies of the subjects for employment in cooperative section are significantly affected by their knowledge and awareness, incentives, barriers, educational needs, and age. Knowledge and incentives have positive effect on employment in this section while age, barriers and educational needs have negative impact. In addition, significant differences exist among subjects’ approaches from different universities, genders, as well as being student or graduate.

The current study is carried out to determine the methods of cashraising entrepreneurial projects of cooperation sector in Mazandaran province in 2009. Hence on the basis of a four-dimensional conceptual model, the method of cash-raising for entrepreneurial projects in the cooperation sector in Mazandaran province. Statistical population is managers (110 persons) of cooperative companies in Mazandaran province. After coding, the gathered data were tested by SPSS software. The results of Cronbach a test confirmed the reliability of research tools with a coefficient of 0.79. T test resulted from applying four sources of cashraising showed that internal cash-raising & external cash raising (shareholders’ equity) are not optimally used but personal (private) cashraising and loan (mortgaging) cash-raising methods are optimally used in entrepreneurial projects of cooperation sector of Mazandaran Province. Therefore facilitating the solutions of receiving cash sources through loans results in enhanced cash sources for entrepreneurs and development of entrepreneurial projects. As the major source for loans are banks, reducing interest rates results in less risk and obligations for managers and increases incentive for entrepreneurship.

The objective of the current article is to identify the relation between managers' capabilities and performance of consumer cooperative in Kerman city. This study was carried out in correlating method and research method was library study and reviewing annual performance and document reports. Statistical population of this study consisted of 21 managers of consumer cooperative in Kerman in 2010. Statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS 16 to calculate descriptive statistics, correlation and regression. Based on literature, for performance evaluation, the paper used financial indicators such as ROA, ROE and profit margin. Also managers' capabilities were examined by three variables: education, working experience and education disciplines related to cooperative activity.According to correlation analysis, working experience and education disciplines related to cooperative activity have significant positive relationship with cooperative performance but there is no significant relationship between education and cooperative performance.The result of multiple regression analysis indicated that work experience is the most effective variable on cooperative performance. 35.2% of the changes in performance is caused by work experience and education disciplines related to cooperative activity.

In this study, effects of empowering human resources on performance are investigated using Thomas and Velthouse model. Empowering variable is defined through recognition viewpoint, containing four emotional aspects of competence, adequacy, autonomy and meaningfulness of the profession.The current research statistical population is the employees and managers of Hamedan cooperation administration office. The sampling method used was group random sampling and 132 samples were selected among employees of cooperation organization in the Hamedan province in 2009. Data gathering tool were questionnaires which were completed by employees and managers.Correlation between variables was studied using Kolmograph and Smirnof test in SPSS program. Results showed that there is significant relationship between four emotional aspects and performance of the employees. On the other hand the more these feelings in the employees; the better shall be their performances.