Success of Agricultural Cooperative Development in Ethiopia Presented at USAID Workshop

June 3, 2004

No. 19/04

Addis Ababa (US Embassy) - The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the cooperative and agribusiness organization, VOCA/Ethiopia, conducted a workshop on Thursday, June 3rd, that highlighted the success and challenges of agricultural cooperative development in Ethiopia.  The workshop focus was on  "Linking Smallholder Farmers to Markets". Cooperatives are an important means to bring smallholder farmers together to open new markets and receive higher prices for their produce.  The workshop demonstrated the potential of cooperatives and their unions to support government and donor objectives to open markets and improve agricultural marketing. 

The Commissioner of Cooperatives, Haile Gabre, gave the keynote address at the workshop and thanked USAID for its support for strengthening cooperative operations and business and marketing skills.   He emphasized the high priority the Government places on the commercialization of smallholder farmers and the central role of cooperatives in helping to achieve this.

The cooperatives spoke for themselves through cooperative members, board directors and managers who presented at the workshop and explained cooperative achievements, impacts and challenges.  USAID assistance through VOCA/Ethiopia was key in these successes. Government, donor and NGO staffs attended to better understand the results and potential use of cooperatives to promote rural economic development.  USAID and VOCA/Ethiopia have assisted in the development and strengthening of over 30 cooperative unions with membership of 450 primary cooperatives which have over 550,000 farmer members. The USAID assistance also supported the capacity building and strengthening of the Regional Cooperative Promotion Bureaus.

Cooperatives through  a self-help and a business-oriented approach to agriculture have been the force to achieve organizational growth and market success.  To support their efforts, VOCA/Ethiopia and the Regional Cooperative Promotion Bureaus have provided training, technical assistance and mentoring.  The USAID programs strengthen the management capacity of primary cooperatives and cooperative unions, help farmers improve their productivity and trade competitiveness, and support direct market linkages.  VOCA/Ethiopia helps establish business partnerships between the cooperatives and agro-processors, larger-scale agricultural producers, and traders.  This has resulted in tens of thousands of smallholder farmers and pastoralists improving their access to modern production inputs and markets (domestic and international) for their products.

VOCA/Ethiopia has been focusing its market development and linkages activities on coffee, cereals, and livestock and has recently begun work in the vegetable sector.  Outside these four  focus areas, success has also been achieved in sugarcane and oilseeds.  In coffee, for example, cooperative sector direct sales to international high value markets has gone from a few tons five years ago to close to 5,500 tons this season which is valued at approximately US $10 million.  ACDI/VOCA also helped Dodicha Cooperative, a member of the Meki Batu Union, sell top quality beans to a local farmer/packer to export to Europe.  The cooperative members received nearly four times the local price for beans.

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