Like bees on honey
Just as the bee knows where to take the honey, the newly created associations are sure where to come for loans
To obtain financing in the microfinance organization "Atameken Taraz" and join efforts to increase production and to expand into new markets, at the end of last year the agricultural production cooperative "Pchelokompleks "AraTau" united the three major honey producers and bee of Kordai.
State agribusiness development program for 2017-2021 years is the development of large-scale agricultural cooperation to involve 670,000 smallholders in commercial production and to create an effective marketing system and processing of products.
Realizing the importance of agricultural cooperation for the development of agribusiness in the region, the Regional Chamber of Entrepreneurs identified as one of the most important tasks of its work - the promotion of co-operatives among agricultural producers.
This work resulted in the creation of a number of co-operatives and associations: Agricultural Production Cooperative (hereinafter - SEC) "Merkі Onimderi" (milk cluster), SEC "Pchelokompleks "AraTau" (beekeeping), PC "SEC "Karasai" (sugar beet), and SEC "Zhualy Alatau".
Despite the fact that beekeeping is a fairly conservative industry where every businessman prefers to work independently, even those entrepreneurs realize all the advantages of working together, and SEC "Pchelokompleks" AraTau" became the first pioneer in Kordai district of our region. It was registered in November last year, three individual entrepreneur of Korday district - Valeri and Artem Romashchenko and Nikolai Khokhulin.
"There were several reasons for that, and above all, understanding that to enter the real honey market, especially to the foreign, you need quite large amounts of the product, - says the chairman of the SEC Valery Romashchenko. - It is obvious that the vast majority of individual beekeepers are small-scale, they are unable to offer the market a large batch of honey. But if you combine the inventories of several honey producers, the yield on real market bee products lies within the boundaries of the possible. What is the conclusion? Absolutely. We must unite! Access to real honey market - is very important, but not the only argument in favor of co-operation".
There are soft loans to support such organizations of rural entrepreneurs, which were created with the participation of the Chamber of Entrepreneurs and the regional akimat MFI "Atameken Taraz". At the end of last year, they applied for a loan, the application has been approved by the credit committee. Of the total loan amount of 15 million tenge, the entrepreneurs are going to spend the first tranche in the amount of three million tenge on equipment trade and bus shelters for the implementation of bee products.
"Seeing the real benefits of cooperation, many beekeepers of Korday district join us. Today, our co-op members joined bee colonies, hives and beekeeping equipment as well as vehicles. Amalgamation of material resources has enabled the creation of huge honey production facility, and the pooling of financial resources will enable us to buy a modern high-performance equipment for the extraction of honey. In the near future – we plan to open the store for sale of bee products, the construction of plant for processing and packaging of bee products, as well as the acquisition of big vehicles for transportation of large consignments of beekeeping and bee colonies", - shared plans Valery Romashchenko.
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