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The optimal use of capacities, facilities and resources of both parties for synergy in the implementation of agricultural transformation programs with the new approach of the ASIDA is emphasized by the MOU.

MOU states that the level of coverage and the number of funds will be increased through the formation of new Funds at the national and regional levels or the coverage expansion by establishing new Funds in the urban areas of which the government’s share capital will be provided by deputy. Also, the number of shareholders and the capital of the Funds and payment facilities should be developed and the distribution of financial resources of the government agencies should be done more.

The Deputy Minister of Planning and Economy also pledged to: follow up to remove obstacles and facilitate the processes needed to implement the agricultural transformation program with a new approach, support and finance the government’s share in forming and increasing the capital of Funds in order to fulfill the commitments of SFIDA. From all the programs of the SFIDA and following up and supporting the hand over the activities related to the Ministry of Agriculture-Jahad to the Funds, cooperating and supporting the conclusion of contracts with support loops for contract agriculture in the form of value chain and creating an intelligent system to receive performance reports from Fund to support the development of investment in the agricultural sector.

Dr. Yasmin Saadat, retired from IFC, World Bank was the speaker to the CEOs of Funds from the all province of the country and directors of SFIDA.
She briefed about the agricultural Value Chain, Warehouse Receipt Financing (WRF), different warehouse including private, field and public warehouse, enabling legal framework, Structured Trade Finance, IFC’s Global Warehouse Finance Program, Risk mitigation, Transaction Structure and secured structure, Required Capital, Insurance and Financial Performance Guarantee, Security Package and Legal Enforceability, Secured offshore Structure, and etc.
The full presentation file is available with the following link.
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“This webinar on investment and development in the agricultural sector, entitled ‘Experiences of the National Program of My Home, My Farm in Bangladesh’, focuses on Micro capital saving and can be an example of specialized meetings that lead to Increase cooperation between international funds and institutions, He added.
Mihir Kanti Majumder, Ph.D., former Chairman, Palli Shanchay Bank (Rural saving Bank), was the key speaker and briefed about the followings:
1. The rich natural resources of Bangladesh which considered as Environment Capital
2. Different type of capitals which poor people are only rich in Social Capital
3. Traditional Family farming which was less productive because of inadequate skills as well as inappropriate technology.
4. Micro-savings concept & its Practice in Bangladesh changed from “saving one fist of rice in earthen pots before cooking of meals daily and keeping coins/currency notes under the mattress” to “Mobile banking, agent banking, School Banking and modern saving”.
5. Hindrance of Micro-savings Practices: Poor people have less income and they can’t save
6. Concept of Amar Bari Amar Khamar (My House My Farm): Promote Micro-savings practices

The power point file is attached here for more information.

A meeting to discuss about the Palm Kernel Cake (PKC) was held on 3 October 2021 at Dairy Products Supportive Fund. Mr. Hisamuddin Md. Aspar, manager for Central Asia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran on behalf of Malaysian Palm Oil Board and Hossein Shahbaz, director of Public Relation and International Cooperation, SFIDA and 5 CEOs of Agriculture Supporting Funds on behalf of SFIDA attended the meeting.

A presentation made by Hisamuddin explained about the benefits of the PKC and mentioned that Malaysia produces almost 2.5 million tones annually and all are exported to different countries such as New Zealand, Vietnam, The Netherlands, Germany, and etc. Studies show that PKC is a good substitution to wheat and rice bran and also some part of the other meals such as Soya and cotton meals. PKC contains less (almost half) protein than Soya Meal but the price is less than 30% and it is available year round. The following table shows the compound of the PKC. It contains more fat which can increase the fat in the milk to increase the price of the milk.

It was supposed to have another meeting to discuss in detail at Livestock Development Fund office.

Finally, Hisamuddin proposed to have a trial PKC use in Animal Feed collaboratively with SFIDA. He was requested to send a proposal to SFIDA to examine it.

Presently, our first priority which will be discussed at the first meeting of the Council of Deputies, is to examine the main issue in the field of agriculture, namely the provision of basic inputs and goods needed by the people.

The Minister of Agriculture-Jahad stated: “Protecting the people’s food dish and peace in supplying basic goods is our first priority.”

Providing the required foreign currency is very important for us, he added. “This year, when we were suffering from drought, we had shortages to supply fodder and other basic goods, so we are emphasizing providing foreign currency to import them” he mentioned.” We had discussion about it in the morning session and these talks will continue until next week, and we hope to be able to manage the supply, considering the foreign currency availability.

While referring to the farmers who are either preparing for the autumn cultivation or preparing for the next cultivation season, Dr. Sadati Nejad emphasized: “In this regard, two main issues are the ministry’s priority before starting cultivation including determining the guaranteed price, which we will try to address in the Pricing Council to be formed on upcoming Monday, and the second issue is the supply of agricultural inputs such as pesticides, fertilizer and seeds. We do our best so that farmers do not have problems in their autumn cultivation”.

He continued: “One of the other important issues is providing insurance compensation, which has not been paid to farmers for some time, and also the delay in repaying farmers’ instalments, which has been approved due to drought, but has not been implemented and would be addressed in two weeks.”

The Minister of Agriculture-Jahad, stating that we will manage food security by setting up a committee and able to use the pioneers capacities in the ministry to strengthen to monitor the food security criteria, monitoring, supply and control chain. And we will set up oversight in the ministry to minimize various fluctuations.

The Minister pointing out that we in the Ministry of Agriculture Jahad deal with 85 million Iranians, said: The agricultural sector is the most private and popular sector in the Iranian economy, so producers, organizations, unions, cooperatives, sector activists And we expect the existing trade unions to participate in policy-making, management, decision-making and decision-making with the Ministry of Agriculture-Jahad.

He added: “If we are going to supply the market of basic products and goods of the people, we must do it with the help of this sector actors and use their capacities. I believe that a large community of people and jobs in the country belong to this sector”.

We are dealing with a community of over 21 million people in agriculture sector, and these people are the best option to control market fluctuations and regulate the market and marketing so that they can take advantage of their own resources and eliminate intermediaries.

The Minister stated: “Supplying inputs, monitoring the market and marketing are our short-term goals that we will pay attention as our first priority by applying the actors’ capacities to better oversight”.

Chair of the Board and CEO of the SFIDA, Dr. J. Behzad Nasab, in a meeting with the Parliament Members of North Khorasan Province on Wednesday, August 4, 2021 said: Barriers to Agricultural Production, which is on the agenda of the Islamic Consultative Assembly can be used as an opportunity to organize the important issues of the market, the financial and credit system and investment in the agriculture sector. It can improve productivity and remove barriers of production by the farmers’ community.

He added: Funds for Agriculture have many supportive laws for equipping and developing which can be the executive arm to strengthen the country’s food security and remove obstacles to production in the agriculture sector.

Alizadeh Moghadam, member of the board and deputy CEO of SFIDA, referring to some articles of the national program entitled: “Plan to strengthen the country’s food security and remove barriers to production in the agriculture sector,” said: The articles of this plan can be modified to serve the farming community. Addressing  the problems of the financing system in the agricultural sector, he stated: ” To address this problem, funds to support the development of the agricultural sector with the aim of capital formation, expanding  the volume and quality of investment with the share more than 51% owned by producers and 49% owned by the Ministry of Agriculture Jahad were set up”. These funds are a joint stock company and are governed by commercial law.

He told: Currently, 162 funds to support the development of the agricultural sector in the form of provincial, county, women, national, natural and regional funds with a capital of two thousand and 500 billion Tomans have been formed. Also, Abdullah Yousefi, head of the North Khorasan Agriculture Jahad Organization and representative of the SFIDA in the North Khorasan Provincial Fund, explained on the performance of eight County funds and the provincial fund in financing, helping to provide the required inputs and marketing of agricultural products of the province. In the meeting, emphasis was placed on quantitative development, capital increase and realization of capital adequacy of funds to support the development of the agriculture sector and the share of government in funds to support the development of the agriculture sector of the province.

Chairman and CEO of SFIDA along with members of the board, CEOs and representatives of the SFIDA in national and provincial funds attended in a webinar organized by SFIDA on Wednesday, August 13, 2021. “Although there are many good experiences in the world which can be useful  for us, we have also success stories with SFIDA and its affiliated Funds to share with the world. Once it was selected by CIRDAP as a success story of Iran and shared with its 15 member countries” Chairman and CEO of SFIDA said.

He added: “Documenting and creating a special space for introducing the SFIDA in different platforms and websites should be on the agenda.” He mentioned: The English website is one of the platform to present us to the world which can be considered as entrance gate to the world.

Behzad Nasab stated: modeling of the success stories should be done and activities of SFIDA should be presented scientifically and up-to-date to domestic and foreign conferences. Hossein Shahbaz, an international affairs expert of the SFIDA, also spoke about the objectives, programs, process and possible activities in the international arena and added: “It is better for the SFIDA and its affiliated funds to be more familiar with international organizations similar with SFIDA approach operating in Iran and outside and engage in wider activity in this area. He asked the CEO of Funds present at the meeting to send their proposals for further interaction with international organizations and institutions to the international unit of the SFIDA.

Dr. Khavazi, minister of the Agriculture Jahad in a TV programme stated that the important point is the sensitivity of policy in the agricultural sector. He mentioned: “In agriculture sector, any related policy if not properly expertized will lead to dissatisfaction of producers or consumers and affect the production chain.”

Referring to the integrated management of the value chain of agricultural products and food, the Minister of Agriculture Jahad said: “Any country that can have a more integrated management in this field, can meet the goals of producers, consumers and related industries.”

He added: “In addition to integrated management, the degree of dependence of the whole chain on abroad is very important. The more we depend on the food production chain abroad, the more it will affect the way of production.”

Regarding the incoherence in the value chain of agricultural products and its integrated management, he said: “One of the examples in the field of livestock is that the Livestock Affairs Support Company, which is managed by the Ministry of Agriculture Jahad, has not been able to buy meat from domestic producers to keep as strategic reserves, because every time it was raised in the market regulation headquarters, they opposed it and considered this action to increase the price of meat, while this is not the case. So, greater responsiveness and properly meet the needs of producers and consumers will occur if the decision maker is one organization and integrated value chain management used.

The fifth festival of young thinkers and scientists, called the Festival of the Century, is organized by the Jamili Charity Foundation with the aim of supporting knowledge-based ideas, cultivating talents, strengthening the spirit of innovation, and creating motivation and hope among young people.

The winners of this festival will receive the financial support of Jamili Charity Association. Activists with new ideas in the agricultural sector are hereby invited to submit their ideas to the festival. It is further mentioned that in the fourth festival, two of the ideas that were selected and supported were related to the agricultural sector.

More information is available on the festival website at http://ysf-persia.com/For more information, please call +98-21-42916237 during office hours or visit www.agri-peri.ac.ir.

Referring to the memorandum of cooperation signed with the Vice-President for Science and Technology (http://en.isti.ir/), Center for Strategic Technologies Development and Biotechnology Development Headquarters, the executive instructions of this memorandum issued by Dr. Janali Behzadnasb, CEO and chair of SFIDA to the heads of the provincial agriculture Jahad organizations and the representatives of SFIDA at provincial Funds.
The instruction emphasized the objectives of the memorandum to help knowledge and technology development in agriculture by using the capacity of the funds to support the development of the agricultural sector as well as the support of knowledge-based companies active in the agricultural sector.
In this notification, it is emphasized that the board of directors of the funds provide the maximum use of the capacities of this memorandum and the relevant instructions in the funds and send regular periodic reports to SFIDA in quarterly stages of work progress. A copy of memorandum is available in local language webpage.
(https://sfida.ir/fa/%d8%af%d8%b3%d8%aa%d9%88%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b9%d9%85%d9%84-%d8%a7%d8%ac%d8%b1%d8%a7%db%8c%db%8c-%d8%aa%d9%81%d8%a7%d9%87%d9%85-%d9%86%d8%a7%d9%85%d9%87-%d9%87%d9%85%da%a9%d8%a7%d8%b1%db%8c-%d8%a8/)

When SFIDA was set up in 2004 there were only two kind of Funds including National Fund and Provincial Fund with 4 and 5 numbers respectively.

Later the category of Funds increased and now there are six kind of Funds. The new of them are i. County Fund, ii. Women Fund, iii. Natural Resources Fund (NRF) and iv. Regional Fund. Annually there were a lot of request from different part of the country to set up new Funds jointly with SFIDA.

The above figure shows the annual new Funds in different categories. In 2012 and 2019, more than other years new Funds set up. SFIDA is trying to be present in all over the country geographically to provide support to the more stakeholders active in agriculture sector.

On Monday, August 2, 2021, a meeting was held for the Dairy Products Development Support Fund attended by Dr. Esfandiari, Director General, Majid Asadollahi, Deputy Director General, Agro Based and Food Industries office, Ministry of Agriculture Jahad, Alireza Ashrafi, Advisor to the CEO, Dariush Arabi, Director of Assemblies and Representatives , Houshang Mohammadi, Director of Operations Development and Productivity Improvement, Shahriar Rostami, Director of Investment Development and Facilities of the SFIDA.

The importance of the Dairy Products Fund to ensure partially the food security of the country, provide strategies to be benefited from legal capacities to improve productivity, improving the performance of Dairy Products Fund and possible synergy with SFIDA were discussed.