It is a Farmers’ Cooperative Union in Awi Zone of Amhara National Regional State – Admas Multipurpose Farmers’ Cooperative Union. The union was established in December 2013 with the vision of “Seeing strong and competitive cooperatives in East Africa”.
At the time of its formation, the Cooperative was established with 16 founding basic cooperatives. Five woredas in the zone are the working area. According to the information obtained from the union, the value of a bid was 2,000 Birr and the minimum bidding capacity is 17. It began operation with the total starting capital of 855,852 Birr hiring five workers.
According to the data, the union’s member cooperatives have now reached 83. Expanding its working area, it has included three city administrations and nine rural woredas. The capital has also accelerated to 128 million Birr. The number of individual members involved is 178,005 and the number of employees has reached 255.
From the beginning, when Admas Union was established, its purpose was to provide inputs and technology and to provide transportation services; benefiting members by receiving and selling their products at a better price; and providing education and training and expanding investment. To achieve these goals, the union is diligent and coordinated.
One of the main activities of the union is to supply more than 460,000 quintals of fertilizer annually. To facilitate this work, the union has a central warehouse at four locations where it directly removes fertilizer from the port. Apart from the central warehouse, the union has 83 member cooperatives, 325 branches and 115 distribution stations. It is a union that works closely with members and the community by recruiting staff to facilitate the work.
The union is constructing a warehouse in weredas aiming to provide a warehouse service to meet the needs of its members on an area of 19,880 square meters by taking advantage of the opportunity created by the government to own land with lower lease.
It has constructed a warehouse that stores 230,000 quintals in a woreda by obtaining 20,000 square meters of land with a minimum lease price and paying compensation.
Various activities are also taking place in the field of freight transport. It is a union that owns two trucks with trailers, one minivan and two field vehicles. According to the data, the union’s working environment has created opportunities for different product combinations due to the high altitude, plateau and lowlands. The Farmers’ Cooperative produces barley and wheat in the highlands; wheat, corn, pepper and nigger in the plateau; as well as sesame, soya beans, and almonds in the lowlands.
More than 12 million quintals of produce is produced from irrigation and harvesting in these areas. Domestic market participation an average of 139,000 quintals of produce is traded per year, of which 65 percent is used to stabilize the market.
So far, the Cooperative Union’s market destinations are Member Basic Cooperatives; Consumer Cooperatives; the charities and Disaster Risk Management Institutions. For example, this year alone, the union has provided 50,000 quintals of maize for Disaster Risk Management.
The union has sold more than 2.5 million Birr worth of products to the local market that made the society benefit with fair price. Cooperatives have been able to make a profit of up to 1.5 million Birr due to their competitiveness in the market.
On the other hand, it has been four years since the union entered the export market. It earned more than 2.5 million USD in export trade. With this earning, it is an association that has been able to engage in various important investment sectors in the region without any request from the government. With this, it has established a PP bag factory, a carpet factory and a grain mill. Aiming to create a conducive workplace, it has constructed a four-storey building that is providing service to sell cultural goods that reflect members’ culture and custom.
It has also acquired Earth scales and generators and is providing education and training to members and staff of member cooperatives on the use of pre-harvest and post-harvest technology, cooperative principles and concepts, and accounting. In addition, to modernize the cooperatives’ system, it is providing training on basic computerized accounting and database via opening a computer training institute in collaboration with the College of Technical and Vocational Training.
In the field of agricultural mechanization, it has procured five agricultural tractors, five plows and five soil breaking machineries to modernize the farming system of the member farmers. With these mechanized farms, it cultivates more than 2,640 hectares of land every year. It breaks more than 2,000 hectares of soil and produces more than 10,000 quintals of maize.
In addition, it has been able to build an integrated small industrial park established by the union. The Integrated Small Industrial Park includes PP Bag Factory, Fodder Factory and Carpet Factory. The union has built a PP Bag Factory that will be able to produce 60,000 bags a day when fully operational. It earns at least 500,000 Birr a day from his products. At the same time, it creates 340 jobs.
The carpet factory in the Integrated Medium Industrial Park will use bag residue and will produce 300 carpets per day and earns 75,000 Birr per day when fully operational. It creates jobs for at least 60 people.
The fodder factory is very important to modernize livestock development when it is fully operational it is expected to generate 240 quintals of fodder and 24,000 Birr per day. The union has built a husking factory with a capacity to husk 500 quintals per day and can earn at least 20,000 Birr a day.
Jobs created by unions and member basic cooperatives have a total of 255 permanent jobs created by the union and 1260 temporary jobs created by small unions. Jobs are expected to be even greater when all factories are fully operational.
The union has granted over 10.7 million Birr support for the construction of the school and polytechnic college; for the construction of health facilities and athletics village; to the Purchase of pesticides; Capacity building for youth: support for people with disabilities and the elderly, as well as prevention of corona virus. In addition to providing educational materials for orphans and for urban sanitation and seedling development; it has supported social issues such as support for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and the like.
According to the union, further cooperation is possible. But because of unforeseen circumstances, it could not go any further. One of the main problems that the union did not address was power outages. Lack of supply and sometimes deficit of commercial credit has also been identified as major obstacle to the union’s work.
However, the fact that it can overcome the problems and solve them indicates the future direction of the union. Its focus areas are increasing the number of supply stations from 115 to 230 by building one input supply and marketing warehouse in all kebeles; producing fodder nutrients; importing of seeds and chemicals; launching a corn processing industry; importing pre-harvest and post-harvest technology as well as job creation.
BY STAFF REPRTER
The Ethiopian Herald May 6/2021
