Role of Women’s Participation in Farmer’s Multipurpose Cooperatives Society: The Case of Dire Enchini Woreda, West Shoa Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

Women’s Participation in farmers multipurpose implies the active involvement in development of the rural women in farmer’s cooperatives; but, there is low participation of the women in the cooperatives. The purpose of this study was to assesses role of Women’s Participation in Farmer’s multipurpose Cooperatives society. The data were obtained through questionnaire and interview. A total of 103 questionnaires were distributed made a return rate of 100%. Accordingly, the result showed that the average mean value of women involvement in decision making was (M=4.07). 66.99% of women participation are implementation decisions; while, that of the shouldering responsibility was noted that (M=3.88, SD=1.08). The average mean value of promptness and attending general meeting and the share purchasing was noted as a high value (M=3.65, SD=.46) and (M=3.81, SD=.49) respectively. The average mean of the Awareness about Cooperation and the leadership propensity was found to be (M=3.481, SD=.44) and (M=3.25, SD=1.012) respectively. All the women103 (100%) participated in Farmer’s multipurpose Cooperatives society owns livestock as their major property. The major source of income of the women participated in farmer’s multipurpose Cooperatives society was found to be sale of vegetables and crops 54 (52.8%) and 43 (41.7%) of them generate income by sale of livestock. The respondents also told that majority of them earned between 50,000 to 200,000 ETB annual incomes. Most of the women 92 (90.3%) were responded that they have equal control the economic capitals with other members. Majority of them 75 (73.6%) replied that they were not their livelihood/welfares. The regression model showed that the independent variables affected the dependent variables at p < .005. In general, great women’s domestic work load leads the women not to have time to involve in decision making process like participating attend cooperative meetings, election etc. are also one of the indication of the recent findings implications. Hence, it is advisable to empower and encourage women in different positions of the cooperatives