An Assessment of Performance Effectiveness of Agricultural Cooperatives in Egypt: Case Study of Nubariya District

Abstract

Egypt has a long history with consumer and producer cooperatives that dates to the late 1950s and till today. Both types of cooperatives are government-owned and operated. While consumer cooperatives evolved smoothly over the years with a significant improvement in effectiveness with the economy gradually switching to a complete market system, producer cooperatives suffer from lack of effectiveness. Farmers complaints about lack of effectiveness of the agricultural cooperatives is a popular debate in Egypt.The main objective of this study is to quantity an effectiveness measure taking into consideration the points of views of the farmers and the cooperative managers. The agricultural cooperatives located in Nasr Canal Command Area of New Nubariya of Egypt are surveyed via personal interviews. Six cooperative managers and two hundred farmers are interviewed face to face. In assessing effectiveness, the study has extended and modified the Robert Elkin and Mark Molitor model. The effectiveness measure modifications resulted in having a measure of the organization's degree of effectiveness of agricultural cooperatives through the estimation of four indicators: capital (four items), human resources (four items), administrative (four items), and the cooperative objectives fulfillment (fifteen items). Results show overall effectiveness levels below average with ratios of 42.81% and 46.92% for farmers and managers, respectively. The organizational and administrative indicator being the weakest from the farmers perspective. Cooperative managers cited that the indicators of human resources and capital resources to be the weakest. Both the farmers and the managers commonly conformed that the indicator of the cooperative goals fulfillment to occupy first place in impacting effectiveness.

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“…Particularly, the current model of agricultural cooperatives in Egypt-farmers' representatives-is limited to tasks related to selling and distributing agricultural inputs (e.g., fertilizers, seeds, pesticides, etc. ); which are often performed with low efficiency [33]. Those cooperatives have very limited bargaining and political power, and it is highly unlikely that agricultural cooperatives would be empowered to play different roles in the current political context.…”