Iran Takes New Steps to Develop Specialized Agricultural Cooperatives: Deputy Minster

Underlying the significance of the training for boosting the performance of the cooperatives, Hossein Shirzad, who is also the CEO of the Central Organization for Rural Cooperatives of Iran (CORC), implied that CORC in cooperation with the specialized departments of the agriculture ministry has formed common working groups.

"Having specific Statutes, including light cattle, oilseeds, beans, and medicinal plants, these common working groups have succeeded to develop more than 200 mono-crop agro-cooperatives. Including  28 oilseed cooperatives, 20 light cattle cooperatives, 100 bean cooperatives, 49 medicinal plants, and 15 saffron-farmers cooperatives, these mutual have been welcomed by the small scale farmers", Shirzad added.

Meanwhile, after more than half a century, CORC has approved the project of "Decision making on the stagnant cooperative". Including the By-law, this project has been announced to the provincial branches to facilitate the decision –making procedure on the dissolution or merging of the stagnant cooperatives.

Enforcing the 20th Chapter of the Cooperative Law and 7th Chapter of the Cooperative Statute, 921 stagnant cooperatives had been detected nationwide. According to a three-year strategically planning, these cooperatives should be considered to be dissolved or merged, Shirzad asserted, he also went on that  307 of the stagnant cooperatives had been detected from the 2019,22 April as the beginning year of the project that are under the legal procedure.

Enumerating the seven assessment criteria of the cooperatives, including conforming the rules and regulations, supplementary and infrastructural facilities, Structural and managerial factors, training and empowerment, observing the financial criteria, the economic viability, and innovative measures, the deputy minister pointed that an analytical report in 248 pages on the assessment procedure has been composed for the top managers through the country. Furthermore, for saving money, time as well as accelerating the data collection, a comprehensive statistical system has been developed to be used in two next years.

Referring to the held training course on the rehabilitation and institutionalization of the cooperatives in the CORC, the official implied CORC by adopting consistent policies with the agriculture ministry, is taking significant measures to boost the quality and quantity of the strategic crops.