Iran Launches Agricultural Development Cooperative for Seeds
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Iranian Ministry of Agriculture-Jihad has established an agricultural development cooperative to boost the quality and quantity of the improved seeds.
Hossein Shirzad, the deputy minister and the chief of the Central Organization of Rural Cooperatives of Iran (CORC), said the cooperative was launched thanks to two-year cooperation of more than fifty agricultural cooperatives.
The Seed Agricultural Cooperative of the Capital was developed by the initiative of the CORC, he said.
The move was aimed at obtaining the agency of the international seed institutes, eliminating the excess cost of farmers (due to the purchasing seed disinfectors, packaging, and farm monitoring), developing climate-based R&Ds and facilitation of oversea transaction of seeds.
"The founding Board and the Statute were developed by the office of the technical and agricultural services of CORC. Meanwhile, they are going to make a call for the holding the first general assembly," Shirzad added.
Currently, there are more than 84 agro-cooperatives which engaged in the improved seed production, among them 50 cooperatives have enrolled in the Seed Agricultural Cooperative of the Capital.
