Abstract

The project titled “Cooperative Options for Cushioning the Effect of Exchange Rate Fluctuation on the Price of Food Stuff in Bamenda Town.”  It has four specific objectives they are – to determine the effect of exchange rate fluctuation on the prices of foodstuff in Bamenda metropolis; to ascertain if cooperatives help to lessen the effects of high rate inflation on foodstuff in Bamenda Town by buying things in wholesale price and share among members; to find out if they play any role in reducing the price of foodstuff for their members; to investigate if there are challenges faced by cooperatives society in checkmating inflation in Cameroon.

The data were sourced from primary and secondary source. Primary source were information obtained from oral interview and questionnaire while secondary data were used to supplement the data collected from the primary sources. The population comprises all members of cooperatives societies selected random from the study area. The Taro Yamane’s formular were used to determine the sample size.

The sample size was 400. The major problems faced in carrying out this study were lack of standard recording system by the cooperative societies in the area. The research revealed that It shows that cooperative societies play vital role in assisting members in buying foodstuff in wholesale price thereby saving great amount of money for members.

It recommends that cooperative society itself should invest in other ventures to boost its external generating revenue.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Food is a problem facing all living things as no living things can live without food. The civil servants in Bamenda who demand only their salary as a source of income for feeding themselves and their household have been affected by the exchange rate fluctuation in the country which has caused the price of foodstuff to move slop high in the graph curve. This fluctuation in the exchange rate has impacted greatly in the nation by giving room for inflation to show it face in full. The exchange rate is the price of one country’s currency expressed in terms of some other currency. It determines the relative prices of domestic and foreign goods, as well as the strength of external sector participation in international trade.

Which this increase in foodstuff which take-up 80 per cent of civil servants’ income how can they build their own house so that where they retire at old age live will not turn left on them?  How can they save much money to build their own house? If they buy food stuff in wholesale price or in large bulk it will help save money for members. The cooperative society help condense the price of foodstuff in Bamenda metropolises. They purchase foodstuff in bulk eg, Onion, Milk, Oil (groundnut and red), rice, meat, catfish, etc and share it among members accord to the rate they contributed. Cooperatives society is one of the options for helping civil servant save much money by partaking in sharing profit from purchasing foodstuff in wholesale/bulk.

Co-operation is destined to play a decisive and effective role in the world economy. Even the co-operative development all over the world has not been one straight line, and at various times the co-operative movement has cleared the dynamic character of co-operative activities suiting the local and regional environment and economic and social situation.

Cooperative according to Omotesho (2008) is one of the most effective vehicle for efficient mobilization of production resources and accelerated rural development. The importance arises from the fact that the small-scale individual capacity of the peasants production, cannot cope with technological and capital demands of modernized agriculture. The agricultural cooperatives have been there over the years to play this role of drastic structural change in agriculture towards achieving food production and also the socio-economic upliftment of the farmers.

According to FMRD (2001), emphasis on cooperative development is now on multipurpose agricultural cooperatives for food production and marketing. He noted that ninety-six per cent of cooperative societies in this country are designed basically to serve the needs of agriculture. Even the four per cent which constitutes non-agricultural cooperative societies have great relevance for agriculture and the use agricultural products and bye-products. In summary, it does appear that the government has committed itself to the realization of food security in the country.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Over the years Cameroon has been having a teething problem feeding it teeming population all year round and this is partly because it has not been able to adopt an improved farming technique. According to Idachaba (1995), Cameroon agriculture depends overwhelmingly on low productivity resources, land of progressively declining fertility, unskilled farm labour, the hoe matchet, low yielding seed variety and planting material. Low-yielding agricultural and traditional farming practices, poor yield and high cost of food prices.

High production costs are compounded by high processing and transportation cost on account of the primitive state of rural infrastructures, especially rural roads, heavy post-harvest losses both in storage and transportation reduce available marketable and marketed surpluses and result in high food prices, especially in the urban areas (ldachaba, 1995).

The problems that cause the researcher to embark on this study are:

How effective are cooperatives at surviving economic recession? Can they grow at the expense of investor-owned businesses? Do they provide an alternative business model for the future, one that is more sustainable and less risky?

These are important questions, particularly in this recession in relation to the exchange rate fluctuation on the price of foodstuff in Bamenda Town, but also more generally in relation to the way we do business. The easiest way to begin to answer them is with historical evidence from recessions.

There is quite a lot of evidence that cooperative societies survive crises better than other types of business.

Some factors have been there, hybrids such as workers responsible for the poor contribution of cooperative cooperatives that are also consumer cooperatives or societies to the issue of inflation in Cameroon. Socio credit unions, multi-stakeholders cooperatives such as economic characteristics of cooperative societies have those that bring together civil society and local actors to been singled out as the major constraints to cooperative deliver community needs and second and third tier societies’ contribution to redressing the trend of inflation.

Agriculture is one of the most important sectors of the Cameroon economy, it constitutes more than 30% of the total annual gross domestic product (GDP), employs about 70% of the labour force, accounts for over 70% of non-oil exports and most importantly it provides over 20% of the food needs of the country (Adeboye 2007).

At independence (1960) Cameroon’s agriculture was characterized by high production achieved by mobilization of small-scale farmers and provision of infrastructure (road, railways) geared towards developing crops required for export.

1.3 Objectives of Study

The broad objective of this study is to determine the cooperative options for cushioning the effect of exchange rate fluctuation on the prices of foodstuff in Bamenda Town.

1. To determine the effect of exchange rate fluctuation on the prices of foodstuff in the Bamenda metropolis.
2. To ascertain if cooperatives help to lessen the effects of high rate inflation on foodstuff in Bamenda Town by buying things at wholesale price and sharing among members.
3. To find out if they play any role in reducing the price of foodstuff for their members.
4. To investigate if there are challenges faced by cooperatives society in checkmating inflation in Cameroon.

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