Effective Factors on Failure of Tea Grower Cooperatives in Guilan Province

Abstract In order to evaluate the factors affecting the failure of tea farmer cooperatives in Guilan Province a descriptive-correlation study was designed. The statistical population consisted of tea farmer cooperatives’ members and board of directors (N=38736). According to Kerjci and Morgan’s sample size table for the given population, 400 people selected as statistical sample by using stratified sampling method. The instrument used in this study was a questionnaire whose validity was confirmed by university faculty members and Cooperative Organization experts. The estimated reliability in pilot study, using Cronbach’s Alpha, was 0.904, which was an acceptable reliability. Descriptive and inferential statistics used for data analysis. SPSS16 software was used for data analysis. Results of the factor analysis revealed that seven factors such as educational, participatory, supportive, developmental, managerial, responsibility and governeral affect the failure of tea farmer cooperatives. These factors accounted for 71.034% of variance of effective factors in the failure of tea farmer cooperatives. In general, the main factors affected the failure of the tea cooperatives were: insufficient government support, lack of proper communication between production and marketing, lack of proper marketing of products, improper credit policies, and lack of solidarity among members, lack of familiarity with the principles of cooperative members, non-governmental and non-profit credit facilities due to long-term investment.