Agricultural co-operative societies and challenges of sustainability: The case of vegetable cooperative societies in King Sabata Dalindyebo Local Municipality, Eastern Cape Province

The government has initiated various support programmes to assist agricultural co-operative societies to remain viable; however, many cooperatives continue to flounder while some have collapsed. This dissertation assesses the challenges of sustainability facing agricultural co-operative societies gushing vegetable co-operative societies in King Sabata Dalindyebo Local Municipality, Eastern Cape Province as a point of departure. The study used the corporate sustainability theory to investigate the extent to which co-operative societies are able to operate sustainably. The data for this study were collected through document reviews and non-scheduled structured interviews which were conducted through a questionnaire. The board of directors were sampled purposively. The research adopted stratified sampling to select co-operative members that participated in the study. This research made use of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24 software to analyse data. The outcomes provide an understanding of the sustainability challenges that face vegetable co-operative societies. The results show that most of the co-operative societies rely on members for daily farm management. With regards to management, co-operative societies reveal that they keep sales, production and meeting record books. Furthermore, most co-operatives specified that they received training for financial and production record-keeping. It was found that some cooperatives have had training only once since their establishment. However, fewer co-operatives reported that keeping records is still challenging for them due to lack of training and little profit made from sales. The findings suggest that co-operative societies can function well and become sustainable when there is good management and cooperation amongst members. Based on the findings of this research, it is recommended that the government and co-operative stakeholders should play a greater part in ensuring co-operative societies are developed and managed in a way that will make them sustainable without relying solely on government support. For example, the government and stakeholders can establish and enforce policies that encourage co-operatives to invest in member capability programmes that would equip farmers understanding, adoption and use of co-operative values and principles. This would help in reducing challenges that occur within co-operatives and promote cohesion and commitment within co-operatives. The role of extension services towards the sustainability of the co-operatives is crucial. The majority of the co-operatives indicated that there is some level of interaction between the co-operatives and extension personnel albeit, there is a need to improve the frequency of extension visits, training and follow-up appointments.Thesis (MSc) -- Faculty of Science and Agriculture, 202