Georgia takes action to better monitor food safety

Georgia is now better equipped to diagnose plant pests and avoid plant diseases.

Today Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and Agriculture Minister Otar Danelia opened a new phytosanitary laboratory in Tbilisi that would address Georgia's lack of food safety regulations and strengthen food safety and phytosanitary control on plant pests.

More than two million GEL was invested in the European Union (EU)-supported project. The Georgian state allocated 800,000 GEL in this project.

The PM said food safety was one of the main priorities of the Georgian Government.

"We do our best to help farmers and to take care of Georgian customers at the same time. Nothing was done in recent years in the food safety direction. Today we opened a new laboratory. During the past two years more than one billion GEL was invested into the development of Georgia’s agriculture,” said Garibashvili.

At the opening ceremony Georgia's Agriculture Minister said this was the first phytosanitary laboratory in the country "of this kind”.

"[Opening a phytosanitary laboratory] was an important recommendation of the EU. We had a deadline until the end of the year to implement the recommendation, however we did it earlier. This laboratory will allow us to conduct complete research on plants,” said Danelia.

Mediterranean Plant Protection Organisation general director Martin Ward also attended the laboratory opening ceremony.

The facility is fully available for identification of any kind of plant pests.