Farm Credit of ... Armenia?
Farm Credit Armenia is a cooperative based on the U.S. Farm Credit System.
Go to the internet, click on www.fca.am and you’ll see a web site that looks and reads much like those of many Farm Credit Associations. The mission, vision, core values, even the logo are familiar.
But look closer.
This is the web site for Farm Credit Armenia, a cooperative based on the U.S. Farm Credit System, but located over 5,000 miles away in a country bordered by Iran, Turkey and Azerbaijan.
With the help of USDA and the Farm Credit Administration, Farm Credit Armenia was founded in February of 2007 by 57 farmers and the Trust Foundation of the U.S. Farm Credit System. Its board is composed of one person from each of five provinces and an outside independent director. The Chairman of the Board is Seryozha Hayrapetyan and the Chief
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FC Armenia and MidAtlantic FC
Senior Management Team
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Executive Officer is Armen Gabrielyan. Over the past 3 years, they and others from FC of Armenia have visited Farm Credit Associations across the U.S. to learn more about their day-to-day operations.
MidAtlantic Farm Credit has hosted visits by FC of Armenia three times: in 2006 as part of an exploratory trip, in 2008 to show FC of Armenia’s new board how an Association is structured and tour local farms, and most recently in May of 2009.
Each time the two groups get together, the similarities between the U.S. and Armenian systems become more apparent, says Sandy Wieber, VP of Marketing at MidAtlantic. "Their board, like ours, is comprised of farmers. They have interesting backgrounds, one has an orchard, one is a dairy farmer. They come over and talk about the importance of their reputation, they talk about all the things we talk about, with a consistent voice, which is pretty neat."
FC of Armenia is building a farm lending organization from the ground up, making great progress and, in some ways, may actually be improving on the U.S. model, said Wieber. "They said one of the benefits of having been a Communist country is that when Communism falls you rebuild from zero, and you can look at 200 years of America’s mistakes, and start at a strong position, which I thought was a great way to look at it," said Wieber.
A key difference between the two systems is that Armenia has had to deal with far more political struggles. Its borders have been redrawn many times over the past 200 years.
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Sandy Wieber, VP of Marketing
at MidAtlantic FC
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"Armenia has been redefined so often, and there was a horrible genocide in the early 20th Century, within generational memory. Yet we’ll go out to dinner and they will sing us songs. We’re much more guarded as Americans, emotionally. I think we learned more from them than they did from us," said Wieber.
The board of the FC of Armenia also must deal with corruption, adds Wieber. "We take it for granted that there won’t be corruption, where in Armenia they take it for granted that there might be. They looked at their salary structure and their recruiting model so they would be recruiting people who would not be corrupted, and paying people enough that it would not be tempting to be corrupted. It was very eye opening and made me appreciate that our recruiting structure is more about ‘Are we getting someone who will fit into the team?’ and ‘Do they have the skills that they need?’ and never once thinking ‘Will they take bribes?’ It doesn’t register on my list of questions."
So next time you’re surfing on the internet, check out www.fca.am. "It does make me feel really proud as a System member that we’re having this impact across the world," said Wieber. "And so many people don’t even know about it. It’s a great learning experience. It’s a great group of individuals."