Improving Institutional Capacity:
Strengthening Farmer Organizations in the OIC Member Countries
89
1. Does the country have a co-operative law that gives legal standing to farmer
organizations?
Group Country Y/N Source Comments
Arab Countries (cont’d)
Somalia 
In 1973, the government passed a law on national
agricultural cooperatives allowing the existing 3 types of
cooperatives: (i) multi-purpose (to protect the number of
lower-level organizations); (ii) group farm cooperatives,
and (iii) producer cooperatives.
United Arab
Emirates

The UAE does have a co-operative law that gives legal
standing to farmer organization. This is the law No 13
established in the year 1976. Due to the federal nature of
the UAE, different emirates (constituents of the union)
might have different iterations of this law.
Tunisia 
Law 84-28 of May 12, 1984, gives legal standing to FOs
but requires the Ministry of Agriculture to approve the
FO. Law also includes procedures to create FO and
administrative laws
Yemen 
The model of co-operatives as known today was
introduced to Yemen in the 1960s. Yemen's cooperative
law was introduced in 1994 and amended in 1998 for the
last time.
Asian Countries
Afghanistan
 Cooperatives can be registered with the government to
receive subsidies.
Bangladesh

Food and Agriculture
Organization
A 2011 cooperative law was drafted but not yet
approved (FAO). However, there are three other
legislations that affect FOs located across three
registration agencies of government: (i) Department of
Social Services - Founding Act: Voluntary Social
Organization (1961); (ii) Office of the Registrar of Joint
Stock Companies and Firms (RJSC) - Founding Act: The
Society Registration Act (1860); and (iii) Department of
Cooperatives (DoC) - Founding Act: Cooperative Society
Ordinance (1984).
Guyana

Journal of small business
management by
Raghunandan,
Moolchand; Kistow,
Balraj (1998)
On 1 September 1948, Guyana enacted its first
cooperative society’s acts; The rural agricultural
development authority act followed nearly forty years
later, on 17 May 1990.
Indonesia
 Personal communication
during case studies
-
Kazakhstan

Civil Code: Production Coop (articles 96-101) (1994);
Law of Production Cooperatives (1995); Law of Rural
Consumer Cooperation (1999); Law of Consumer
Cooperatives (2001) and Law of Rural Consumer
Cooperatives of Water Users (2003)
Malaysia

ICA Research Conference:
Enhancing Co-Operative
Movement To Achieve
Malaysia’s Development
Goals
There are various Acts that give legal standing to Farmer
Organizations in Malaysia. The most notable one is the
Cooperatives Societies Act of 1993. There are others such
as Farmers' Organization Act of 1973 (it was amended in
1983); Farmers' Organization Authority Act of 1973
(amended in 1999) etc.
Maldives
 Law on Cooperative Societies (Dhivehi).
Azerbaijan  A Draft Law on agricultural cooperatives has been
discussed (2010-2013) but it has yet to be an official law.
Pakistan 
The Co-Operative Societies Act, 1925 provides for the
formation, registration and regulation of cooperative
societies for the promotion of thrift, self-help and mutual
assistance amongst agriculturist or other persons with
common economic or social interests and for achieving
better standards of living and for the matters incidental
thereto.