Performance of Agricultural Cooperatives and The Problems They Encounter in Egypt

This research aimed to identify the level of performance of agricultural cooperatives in Egypt- according to a composite variable of seven dimensions- by surveying the opinions of a representative sample of members of nineteen coops selected from nine governorates in Upper and Lower Egypt. Selection was based on the administrative authority recommendation according to their monitoring reports of these coops as active associations in their governorates. Also, to explore the relationship of this performance with some of the members' related variables. And finally, identifying the problems that these cooperatives suffer from, from the point of view of the respondents. Field data was collected through application of a questionnaire, with a personal interview, on 278 respondents who were randomly selected from members of agricultural cooperatives. This process took place during the period from December 2016 to March 2017. The questionnaire was designed in accordance with the objectives of the research and was subjected to a pre-test. Data were presented using frequencies, percentages, arithmetic mean, range, and standard deviation, and were analysed using the Pearson Correlation Coefficient for continuous data and the Chi-Square test in the case of discrete or categorical data. The most important results of the research showed that: 1) The level of performance of agricultural cooperatives was high from the point of view of about two-thirds of the respondents (66.6%), and average from the point of view a quarter of the respondents (26.6%), while only (6.8%) considered it low. 2) There is a significant relationship between the performance of agricultural cooperatives and the main occupation of the respondents and type of membership, while there was a negative significant relationship with the degree of their satisfaction with the coops' fulfilment of their needs through the agricultural services provided by the association. 3) There is no significant relationship between the performance of agricultural cooperatives and any of the variables of age, gender, number of years of education, area of farm holding. 4) The respondents identified the most important problems facing their agricultural cooperatives in: lack of the capabilities to secure all inputs including the funding the members need, the weak role of associations in solving the marketing problems of the members' produce, the inability of many associations to establish projects to improve their living conditions, the weak role of agricultural extension agents, the lack of diversification of cooperative activities, and he poor physical assets and equipment of the association's headquarters.