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GAARD signed the Declaration on Rural Cooperation Development and Empowerment of Small Holder Farmers in Georgia
On October 26, 2016 29 member organizations of the Georgian Alliance on Agriculture and Rural Development (GAARD’) unanimously approved and signed the Declaration on Rural Cooperation Development and Empowerment of Small Holder Farmers in Georgia.
With the Declaration the GAARD members address Parliament of Georgia, Government of Georgia, Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia and its subordinated institutions, as well as international donor organizations to consider the special role of the agricultural cooperatives and small-holders while implementing the food and agriculture legislation reforms or drafting policy and development programs. Agricultural cooperatives and small-holders make more than 50% of the Georgian population and play an important role in shaping sustainable and dynamic development of this sector that is directly linked to the economic and social empowerment of the rural population in Georgia and inclusive economic growth by 2020 according to the Sustainable Development Strategy of Georgia.
Declaration highlights the need to increase the budgetary allocations included in the Action Plan of the Strategy of Agricultural Development in Georgia 2015-2020 up to 25 million GEL annually in order to ensure the development of the agricultural cooperation system. Taking into account the number and scope of the existing cooperatives, 3.5 million is considerably lower than required and does not correspond to the existing needs for developing agriculture cooperation in Georgia. The Declaration also stresses the need to ensure that agricultural cooperatives enjoy tax incentives during a certain period of time after January 2018, because current tax incentives for the benefit of the agricultural cooperatives (only persisting until January 2018) threatens the sustainability of the agricultural cooperation system in Georgia. By signing this Declaration Alliance members propose the relevant stakeholders to discuss the possibility of establishing a loan guarantee fund, which will provide access to the financial resources for the agricultural cooperatives and small holder farmers.
Please, find the full text of the Declaration on the following link:
GAARD_Declaration_COOPsENG.pdf
