Department of Agricultural Cooperative Promotion (DACP), Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF)

Department of Agricultural Cooperative Promotion (DACP), Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) was established in 2014. The vision of DACP is to promote Agricultural Cooperatives (ACs) and Modern Agriculture Communities (MACs) to become agricultural economic enterprises, diversification and commercialization, self-reliance, bargaining empowerment and strongly local farmer organizations contributing to rural development and the national economic growth.

The main mission of DACP is to strengthen institutional capacity and promote businesses for ACs/MACs to become strong agricultural economic enterprises through agricultural production solutions, business skills development as well as information and data exchanges as part of providing supporting mechanisms, aiming at creating a more sustainable and productive agriculture industry.

A total of 1,476 ACs have been established, with 193,889 members (114,030 are women), and a combined capital of approximately USD 26.7 million. In addition, 22 Unions of Agricultural Cooperatives (UACs) and one Cambodian Agricultural Cooperative Alliance (CACA) have been formed.

The Sixth Priority Policy Program of the Royal Government of Cambodia, Seventh Legislature of the National Assembly, has prioritized the development of MACs as a key strategy to strengthen institutional governance and productivity, reduce production costs, expand market opportunities, promote value-added processing, and improve access to finance.

Recently, 32 MACs have been established in 14 provinces, focusing on six commodities, including rice, cashew nuts, pepper, vegetables, longan and chicken. Since the MACs policy was launched on November 20, 2023, MAFF has actively led, managed, and implemented it in collaboration with key partners.