Department of Agricultural Cooperative, General Directorate of Agriculture

The Government’s Rectangular Strategy recognizes the important role of the agriculture1 sector in supporting economic growth, generating jobs, ensuring food security, and promoting the development of the rural economy. The ministry of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries (MAFF) developed the policy and agriculture sector development strategy towards 20302, envisions “to transform Cambodian agriculture into a modern, competitive, inclusive, climate-resilient, and sustainable sector aiming to increase farmer households’ incomes, prosperity, and well-being of all Cambodians”.

MAFF formulated the Royal Decree on the establishment and functioning of Agricultural Cooperative (AC) in 2001 and formulated the law on ACs in 2013 to promote ACs in Cambodia.At present, there are 1,2171 ACs (with 155,591 members include 98,900 females) are developed and registered with MAFF. There are around 125 million US dollars of share capital and around 256 million US dollars as total working capital of 1,200 ACs.In addition, 15 unions of agriculture cooperative (UAC)1with a total of 1,703 shares (or USD452,375 share capital) and USD845,749 working capital, and one agriculture cooperative alliance (CACA) were developed and function too.The establishment of AC was seen as the best approach to support small-scale farmers in terms of financial service, agricultural input supply, marketing, and other support farming services to farmers. According to the Law on AC, AC can operate with a wide range of business scope falling under the agricultural sector such as agricultural production, agri-business, agro-industry, and farming support services to farmers.

The Department of Agricultural Cooperative Promotion (DACP)1 has been implementing critical roles to promote ACs in the Kingdom of Cambodia, based on the AC’s law.At present, DACP collaborates with the German Cooperative Raiffeisen and Confederation (DGRV) implementing a 3-year project to strengthen the capacity of the ACs.