Assessing Status and Barriers of Youth Participation in Agricultural Co-Operative Marketing: A Survey of Three Selected Agricultural Marketing Co-operative Societies in Kishapu, Tanzania

Abstract

Youth have desirable qualities that they can promote the sustainability of agriculture co-operatives but they are excluded in co-operative sector. Generally, the study aimed at assessing the issues which can motivate youth to participate in agricultural marketing co-operative societies in Kishapu, Tanzania. The research adopted exploratory research design and descriptive research design to investigate the phenomenon and employed sampling methods such as cluster, purposive and simple random.  Data were collected using interview schedules, survey questionnaire, focus group discussion and checklist. The data were subjected to descriptive analysis to obtain the frequencies and percentages for easier interpretations. The results from descriptive analysis indicate that, exclusion of youth have been accentuated by lower age group where by youth with 18-21 age group were not members of AMCOS. Among the issues which have not motivated youth participation in AMCOS have been found to be traditions and customs in the community, poor AMCOS services, lack of special product for youth, availability of similar competitive organization and limited AMCOS' economic benefits to members. It is concluded that AMCOS are marginalizing youth participation because of lack of innovation and poor service design, improper bylaws and limited economic impacts to co-operative members. Therefore, this study recommends that AMCOS management and government should focus on diversification of AMCOS products, education and training, adopt new agricultural production technology and designing of the products that reflect the youth needs so as to improve youth participation in AMCOS.