Agricultural cooperatives have been established in 54 of the 55 participating communities in the framework of the Community Agricultural Resource Management and Competitiveness program for 2017-2018, implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture of Armenia jointly with the World Bank. Director of the «Office for Implementation of Agricultural Programs» of the Ministry of Agriculture Gagik Khachatryan announced this..
He explained that agricultural cooperatives lease pastures from communities, agricultural machinery, and create processing enterprises. According to the director of the office, 250 thousand out of 350 thousand farms in Armenia are engaged in animal husbandry. At the same time, they ineffectively use remote mountain pastures, while pastures located near villages are overloaded and low productivity. And in order to increase the efficiency of the use of remote pastures within the framework of the program, the roads leading to them will be improved, points of reception and primary processing of milk will be created. Note that the total cost of the program is $ 21.33 million, $ 16 million of which was provided in the form of a loan by the World Bank, and $ 5.33 million will be provided by the Armenian government. The loan was provided at an annual rate of 0.75% for a period of 20 years, with a ten-year grace period. According to the RA National Statistical Service, as of the beginning of 2012, the number of cattle in Armenia was 559.2 thousand and increased by 4.9% over the year, pigs — 108.1 thousand (decrease — 5.8%) , small ruminants — 590.1 thousand (growth — 10.8%).
