The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) made a march 28 announcement of farmers’ opinion poll on business activities of multi-purpose agricultural cooperatives (JAs) which are engaged in various business activities.
More than 80 percent of farmers polled answered that it will be continuously necessary for the agricultural cooperatives to provide services to their member farmers with businesses such as marketing of agricultural and livestock products, supplying production inputs and banking, as well as farm guidance.
The poll of 1149 farmers throughout the country was conducted by MAFF during a period from late August to early September, 2016.
MAFF asked these farmers about their opinion on each of JA’s existing businesses respectively with a question of “whether JA should carry out the business.”
JA’s marketing business of agricultural and livestock products received the highest “approval rating” of 88 percent, followed by the supply business of production inputs (84 percent), guidance on agricultural technologies and farm management (85 percent), improvement of facilities for collection, and storage and shipment of farm products (85 percent).
Eighty-four percent of the farmers polled answered that JA needs to implement banking businesses as well including receiving funds and extending loans.
Regarding JA’s supply business of production inputs, meanwhile, 52 percent of the farmers answered that they are not satisfied with the business and 33 percent of them did that they cannot say either way.
Regarding a question asking “what do you want JA to do,” the highest ranked answer was “price cuts of production inputs,” which was chosen by 82 percent of the farmers polled.