Evaluation of marketing system of poultry and livestock production cooperatives in the selected provinces of Iran

      In spite of a rapid expansion of production cooperatives in rural areas, still scientific principles are not applying on production, distribution and marketing processes. Thus, these organizations are facing with various problems, not only in production, but also in marketing affairs. The main objective of this paper is evaluation of marketing system of poultry and livestock production cooperatives, and formulating an appropriate solution for improving their marketing system. To achieve this objective the required data were collected by questionnaire from 360 producers, 160 poultry and livestock cooperatives, 320 wholesalers, 320 retailers, and 340 consumers, trough field survey method in five provinces of Iran. Then, marketing marginal function was estimated to determine the factors affecting marketing marginal of cooperatives. The results show that sufficient attentions are not given to the distribution channel of goods through producers to cooperative, retailers as well as consumers. Also production cooperatives instead of providing their production directly to the consumers, they provide mostly to the wholesalers. The results also indicate that more than 80% of changes in marketing margins of production cooperatives are explained by three factors of retail prices, marketing expenditures and the selling price of goods.