Syria Trust and Farmers’ Union Establish New Agricultural Cooperative

The Syria Trust for Development (STD) and the General Union of Farmers (GUF) have recently established a new agricultural cooperative in the village of Abtin, in the Aleppo governorate, to support the production and marketing of pistachios by providing farmers with production inputs, according to an article published in Al-Baath newspaper on August 7.

The Abtin Cooperative is not the first of its kind. It joins 19 other “productivity cooperatives,” which the STD, chaired by Asma Al-Assad, wife of the Syrian president, announced in partnership with the GUF across various governorates. The partnership between the two parties began in 2021 with the founding of a cooperative for protected agriculture in Yahmur, Tartous governorate.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform issued the guidelines for the internal regulations for agricultural cooperatives in its Decision No. 20, dated May 16, 2023. This regulation is seen as a development and expansion of the Agricultural Regulation Law No. 21 of 1947, along with its amendments, which governs all aspects of the farmers trade union and agricultural activities. According to the internal regulations No. 20 of 2023, an agricultural cooperative is granted legal status from the date of its registration with the GUF. This enables it to own both movable and immovable property and exempts it from all fees related to real estate registration, including those arising from real estate sales and the real estate and building plots income tax.

Under the law, an agricultural cooperative is a “popular” trade union and economic organisation that includes land-owning farmers and agricultural workers as members. The cooperative must have a minimum of 30 members. Its lands consist of the land contributed by its members for collective investment, in addition to any land that the state may allocate from public ownership for the cooperative’s benefit. The cooperative’s land is treated as a single, integrated production unit, which can be divided into large fields to enhance productivity and allow the use of modern irrigation methods. The responsibility for investing in these lands is shared collectively.

These cooperatives provide farmers with “self-sufficiency, enhance their crops, create productive employment opportunities that reduce unemployment, and support the economies of communities that rely on a single type of sustainable production,” according to an article published in the state-run news agency SANA on July 6.

The 20 productive cooperatives established jointly by the STD and the GUF are distributed as follows: 7 in Lattakia, 4 in Aleppo, 3 in Hama, 2 in Homs, 2 in Tartous, 1 in Rural Damascus, and 1 in Suweida. These cooperatives produce honey, olives, Damascene roses, medicinal and aromatic plants, dairy products, pistachios, dried vegetables, grapes, saffron, and protected agriculture crops.

Among the 20 cooperatives, those specialising in cultivating the Damascene rose have received the most media coverage from the STD. Notably, many of these rose-growing cooperatives were founded by farmers who did not own land, with the GUF granting them land from state-owned properties for cultivation.

The legal framework governing these cooperatives’ activities on such land remains unclear, including whether ownership will eventually transfer to the farmers working there. Among these cooperatives is the Marah Cooperative in Rural Damascus, established in 2024, which includes 114 farmers and spans 30 hectares. This cooperative has rehabilitated a drinking water well, equipped it with a renewable energy system, restored another well for irrigation, and distributed 30,000 Damascene rose saplings. The Ministry of Agriculture had reclaimed this land in 2023, in the Marah and Qastal areas, as part of a project to expand Damascene rose cultivation, providing the necessary agricultural supplies in cooperation with the STD. Similarly, the Nairab Cooperative in Aleppo, established in 2023, includes 43 farmers and 50 agricultural workers, and manages 5 water basins for irrigating their land. The Maarin Al-Saleeb Cooperative in Hama, founded in 2022, consists of 31 farmers.

In practice, it is difficult to distinguish between cooperatives established by the STD and the GUF and other agricultural cooperatives. According to figures reported in the local official press, there were approximately 4,500 agricultural cooperatives in Syria in 2022, including 1,072 in the Aleppo governorate alone.