IMPACT OF PRIMARY COFFEE COOPERATIVES MEMBERSHIP ON SMALLHOLDER FARMERS' INCOME AND FOOD SECURITY IN YIRGACHEFFE DISTRICTS, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA

Agricultural cooperatives are one of the most important tools that lead to the enhancement of livelihoods through the provision of credit services, market access, and improve agricultural technologies. Despite the benefit, level of cooperative membership is still very low. Therefore, the objectives of the study were to identify factors influencing the decision to join primary coffee cooperatives and to evaluate the impact of primary coffee cooperatives on smallholder farmers coffee income and food security in Yirgacheffe district, Southern Ethiopia. Both primary and secondary were collected to address the research objectives. Primary data was collected through a structured questionnaire from a sample of 254 households’ selected using multistage sampling technique. Descriptive statistics and an econometric model (logit model and Propensity Score Matching (PSM)) were employed to analyze the data. Also, calorie intake and dietary diversity were used as indicator for food security. The binary logit model results indicate that extension contact, nearest market distance, sex and coffee land had positive and significant association with participation in primary coffee cooperatives while age of the household head and distance to cooperative coffee collection center had negative and significant association. The result indicated that participation in primary coffee cooperatives significantly increased the participants coffee income, and food security status by 8103.5 Birr and 14.4%, respectively. This implies participation in primary coffee cooperatives significantly improved the livelihood of smallholder farmers through coffee income and food security status. Therefore, it is recommended that government and other concerned bodies should work to strengthening of local institutions to solve problems faced by smallholder farmers to participate in primary coffee cooperatives