The Role of Agricultural Production Cooperatvies (Rural Cooperatives) in Improving Life Chances and Welfare of Members: A Case Study of Farsan and Kouhrang Townships

Rural and agricultural development is a multi-dimensional process which aims at enhancing life changes and rural community welfare through increased agricultural efficiency, amended land ownership, social mobility and promoting participation models to make transformations in mental as well as social structures of the rural dwellers. Therefore, agricultural production cooperatives seem to be highly instrumental in this regard. The current paper aims to examine the role of agricultural production cooperatives in improving life chances and welfare of members: A case study of Farsan and Kouhrang Townships in 1389 (2010). The research is of descriptive-analytic nature. The statistical population consists in 18 production cooperative societies 11 of which in Kouhrang and 7 in Farsan. All the 126 members of these cooperatives were fully included instead of sampling. The results show through the wilcokson statistical analysis that the formation of the abovementioned cooperatives helps significantly with employment, sedimentation of rural population and improvement of welfare indexes of coop members.