Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 20 / Trend A.Akhundov /
The draft law 'On Agricultural Cooperatives' is ready for discussion within the second reading. It will probably be considered by the Parliament of Azerbaijan at this session, the parliament informed Trend.
The draft law passed the first reading in April 2011.
'Significant changes have been introduced to the draft law. In particular, during the first reading, the draft law contained articles also present in the Civil Code, regarding the establishment of cooperatives, elimination of their activities and membership. All these items are now excluded from the draft law. Alongside, the new version of the law reflects the issues of state regulation and support, guardianship of municipalities, organisation of cooperative markets and fairs, as well as other issues for the placement of products on markets by a member of the cooperative', according to the parliament.
'Production doesn't solve other issues. These products need to be processed somewhere. Today farmers send their products to processing plants that benefit the situation and dictate their prices. The project provides for the creation of processing cooperatives, logistics cooperatives, agricultural services, credit and insurance cooperatives. This should be organised in a comprehensive way so that manufacturers get involved not only in the production, but also in the processing and sale and derive benefits themselves, not intermediaries', parliament said.
Depending on the methods of unifying participants within the draft law 'On Agricultural Cooperation', agricultural cooperative relationships are formed in various directions.
Level agricultural cooperation involves the unification of participants at the production stage. This provides for the unification of land and other assets, as well as the establishment of a production cooperative for the creation of agricultural products. Vertical agricultural cooperation allows for unification within the cooperatives enterprise at various stages of agricultural production such as processing, sales and service.