Early Rise Cashmere Series

May 10, 2023

Mongolian Sustainable Cashmere Platform organized its bi-monthly Early Rise Cashmere Series meeting under "Cashmere Harvesting, Three-partite Cooperation, and Cashmere Value." Several stakeholders attended the meeting, including the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Light Industry representatives, the National Statistics Office, the Research Institute of Animal Husbandry, Academia, NGOs, Standardization, Accreditation, and Monitoring organizations, and the Private Sector.

S.Vandandorj, National Coordinator of SFA, introduced SFA's activities and presented about cashmere harvesting, three partite cooperation, and this year's cashmere price.

S.Vandandorj gave a presentation about the projects being implemented by SFA and addressed the issues faced by the herder cooperatives.

"Empowering and capacity-building of herder cooperatives is a slow and long-term process. SFA conducts different trainings to improve the skills of the herder cooperatives and their members. However, a lot needs to be done to ensure the cooperatives' good governance and structural organization and financial reporting capacities of the cooperatives," said S.Vandandorj, National Coordinator of SFA.

Stakeholders of the meeting addressed the following issues:

  • Entering the e-barimt in preparing raw materials is a complex issue requiring a collaborative solution with soum authorities. To solve this, MOFALI is working on merging Citizen's Identification Card code with the E-Barimt. In addition, tax exemption and registration of tax-related documents need improvement.
  • Since the government supports the organization of cooperative structures, there is need to improve the registration process by comparing the registration of herders with state registration. In addition, there is a need to link it to the verification of members of cooperatives rather than only heads of the cooperatives.
  • It is necessary to make the certified cooperatives public. In addition, it is essential to clarify the indicators of the audit process. Once the cooperatives that have been certified meet the requirements, it will be possible to connect them with herder's loan.
  • Empowering cooperatives and conducting capacity-building training must focus throughout Mongolia, not only in areas with high-quality cashmere.
  • Attention needs to be paid to herders' health and social problems.
  • Information related to certification and standards, establishing cooperatives, and membership-related information should be more transparent and accessible to the herders.