Agricultural Development Cooperative

In Cambodia, more 75% of people are farmers living in rural area and farming base on rice. We found that key issues related to rice based community as following points:
- Lack of policy supporting activities of community on joint business;
- Not enough agencies to promote agriculture technique;
- Middle men always cheated farmers on price and quantity;
- Information flow related to business and technologies were limit in rural area;
- Official recognizing on mobilization of communities to joint activities in order to take commune benefit for commune had no;
- Communities had no enough capital to start business etc.
To address the issues above, in 2001, Royal Government of Cambodia established law of agricultural cooperative, union of the agricultural cooperative and the pre-agricultural cooperative. This royal decree is to define the establishment and functioning of the agricultural cooperative, the union of the agricultural cooperative and the pre-agricultural cooperative, referred to as “Agricultural Cooperative”. The sphere of activities of the three communities covers the agricultural sector as a whole, including the supply of material and all kinds of services at the disposal of farming production.
The agricultural cooperative provided for in this royal degree is a private legal entity whose capitals are variable and which has full legal competence, self-financing and self-control. The agriculture cooperative can be founded by a group of physical entities which from themselves on volunteer basis on their own initiatives in order to increase their efficiency and to contribute to socio-economic enhancement. Therefore as the Royal Decree itself defines, the agricultural cooperative is a commercial enterprise, which is democratically managed by its members, who contribute their capitals and hope for dividends, and are also willing to incur losses according to the proportion of their shares contributed. To be able to join the agricultural cooperative, all persons must have their prime business in agriculture or services related to the sector.
This Royal Decree does not covers organization, associations or similar agencies, which do not fall within the definition mentioned and are not subject to the law on commercial rule.
This policy provides a chance to community for starting collective business and government will provide support funds to start first and also deal other stakeholders to give soft load for community. In addition to this royal decree, communities of agricultural cooperative have official to import and export any agriculture equipment without tax.