After working on good agricultural practices and the agricultural extension system, the Egyptian think tank decided to focus on the role of cooperatives for the fifth national workshop organised on the 8th and 9th of January, 2017 in Cairo in cooperation with the Department of Foreign Agricultural Relations at the Ministry of Agriculture. Indeed, during the different meetings and throughout the process, cooperatives were presented as key actors to meet the challenges of the agriculture sector. Thus, it was found relevant to address the topic of agricultural cooperatives in order to complete the previous reflections and debates and to propose valuable and operational recommendations to decision-makers.

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Various stakeholders and institutions were invited to discuss this issue including members of agricultural cooperatives from different governorates, officials from the Central Administration of Agricultural Cooperatives and representatives of the FAO branch in Cairo in order to present the “Support to Cooperatives Reforms in Egypt" project.

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The objectives of the workshop was to introduce and discuss the current situation of agricultural cooperatives, the Cooperatives’ Act of 2014 and changes resulting from this act, to identify the main barriers hampering the development of the cooperatives and to find solutions to address these issues.

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This two-day workshop was divided in two sequences. The first day was dedicated to the following presentations, one on the concept of cooperative (role, scope of work, type of services provided, adaptation to the evolution of farmers’ needs and consumers’ requirements…) and its application in European countries, by Tahani ABDELHAKIM, expert from CIHEAM-IAMM and Mashreq project officer for ESSP, and the other on the FAO "Support to Cooperatives Reforms in Egypt" project by Dr. Mohammad Hassan ABED ALAAL, coordinator of the project. The presentations were followed by discussions and debates with the participants on cooperatives, their role and their evolution.

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Participants were divided into two groups during the second day of workshop and an analytical framework composed of questions and discussions topics was distributed to them to address several issues on agricultural cooperatives, identify the main challenges and elaborate operational solutions.

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The main problems identified throughout the discussion sessions which hamper the development of cooperatives, affect their capacity to fulfil their role and functions and thus limit effectiveness of the implementation of the 2014 Act:

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• Lack of appropriate legal framework with a clear definition of the agricultural cooperatives which would precise the type of management to adopt and the tasks entrusted to the cooperatives and which would be adapted to the current economic situation and orientation of the Egyptian agricultural policy;

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• Lack of management and technical skills due to limited financial and humans resources to improve the competences of cooperatives employees and members;

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• Limited financial capacity and lack of infrastructure (storage, sorting, packaging…) which prevent them from investing and growing. That is partly due to the small size of the majority of cooperatives caused by land fragmentation hindering them to reach a critical size;

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• Lack of coordination and cooperation between cooperatives at various levels;

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• Absence of autonomy of the cooperatives due to the intervention of administrative authorities and the submission of cooperatives to their authority. Moreover, cooperatives depend on various regulators which further complicate their functioning and hamper their credibility and the confidence of farmers.

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To tackle these different issues and challenges, participants agreed on different operational recommendations:

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• Set a clear definition of the cooperatives and their roles and adopt a legal framework for cooperatives more appropriate to the current situation;

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• Restructure the relation between the public administration and cooperatives to limit the intervention, to increase the autonomy of agricultural cooperatives, their adaptability and their ability to take initiative but also to increase the confidence of farmers in cooperatives;

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• Reform the management of the cooperatives especially regarding the renewal of the Board Members and Chairperson;

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• Mobilise financial and human resources dedicated to train and build capabilities among cooperatives’ employees and members;

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• Raise the minimum agricultural area of each cooperative in order to avoid the proliferation of small cooperatives with limited financial resources;

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• Convince the producers to apply proper and optional agricultural rotations to improve the use of irrigation water and to adopt good agricultural practices in order to increase the productivity and improve the quality of local products – notably to meet international standards. This requires the improvement of the relation between cooperatives and research/agricultural extension institutions;

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• Diversify the cooperatives’ activities and services provided to their members in particular to improve their marketing know-how and maximize the value of agricultural products to acquire suitable prices, thus contributing to an increase in small farmers' incomes and the development of local economy;

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• Encourage the cooperative to improve the coordination between the actors of the value chain to better identify market demands and contribute to improving the efficiency of the production chain holistically.

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You can find enclosed the full report of the workshop (in english or in arabic).