This year’s regional budget allocates considerable money – about 250 million rubles – for small and midsize agricultural cooperatives.
The peak of the cooperative movement was in 2012 when 179 associations were founded that united 2,384 so-called ‘household plots’ and 407 farmers. Since then, however, the number of agricultural associations has been constantly dropping. According to the regional Ministry for Agriculture, currently there are 146 agricultural consumer cooperatives registered in the Krasnodar region. Ministry officials assert that starting from this year, agricultural consumer cooperative societies will be backed with governmental grants. The money may be used to strengthen their material and technical base, including construction, reconstruction or upgrading of the production facilities, purchase of machinery and equipment, and lease repayments.
To qualify for a grant, a cooperative must be able to cover at least 40% of its planned purchases. The farmers hope that the regional authorities’ effort and successful examples of local cooperative societies should revive the farming activity, said farmer Aleksandr Shipulin from the Leningradsky rayon, member of the national Civic Chamber.
“Farmers are people of the soil; they share the same fate, and it is important that our children and grandchildren should continue our work rather than be thirsting for the life in big cities,” said he.
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