Author: Oleksandr Vrublevskyi, DESPRO expert adviser on starostas’ activity and cooperation of hromadas

Why do starostas need cooperation?

Agricultural cooperation is an effective mechanism for ensuring the competitiveness of small and medium-sized agricultural producers. It can also influences the development of the social infrastructure of settlements included in the starosta district.

Agricultural cooperation as a system of agricultural cooperatives, their associations formed to meet the economic, social and other needs of the members of cooperatives contributes to:

• increase of the level of self-employment of the population;
• joint use of industrial infrastructure (elevators, warehouses), vehicles, special machinery and equipment, which reduces the cost of production and associated costs;
• introduction of new technologies, modernisation of fixed assets and rational use of available resources;
• increase in production volumes and profitability.

Taking into account the positive aspects of agricultural cooperation as a social phenomenon, the starosta should be interested in both the successful functioning of existing cooperatives and the creation of new ones. If there are no cooperatives on the territory of the starosta district, then the starosta, using the powers granted to him/her by the law, may contribute to their creation.

In order to facilitate the establishment of agricultural cooperatives, starosta should have a clear idea of ​​their content, essence and other relative issues.

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