What has Georgia’s Ministry of Agriculture achieved in 4 years?

Increasing competitiveness in the agricultural food sector, promoting stable growth of high quality agricultural production, ensuring food safety and eliminating rural poverty through sustainable development is what Georgia’s Ministry of Agriculture has been doing for the past four years.

Last week Minister Otar Danelia summed up the past four years of activities of the Agriculture Ministry.

This was his final report as Agriculture Minister. Earlier Danelia was presented as the Georgian Dream - Democratic Georgia majoritarian candidate in Georgia’s Martvili-Abasha region, meaning he can no longer continue his activities as Minister.

In the presentation Danelia spoke about all of the projects implemented in the past four years and gave details of the current projects still ongoing. He said positive trends indicated the state policy to develop the industry was the correct path of action and he was confident this would continue in the future.

Hazelnuts – Georgia’s main agricultural export

Georgia’s Agricultural Minister believed hazelnuts had created a new perspective for Georgia’s agriculture sector.

Last year for the first time ever Georgia exported more hazelnuts than wine, meaning hazelnuts become Georgia’s main agricultural export product.

This graphic shows Georgia's top agricultural export products from 2013 to 2015. Image by Mariam Chalauri/Agenda.ge.

Georgia's foreign trade in agriculture 

Georgia is balancing its trade ties with the European Union (EU), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and other countries and reducing its negative trade balance.

A negative trade balance is a situation when a country’s imports exceeds its exports.

Between 2012 and 2016 the negative trade balance of Georgia reduced 44 percent.

There are several reasons that caused Georgia’s exports and imports to balance, and Ekaterine Zviadadze, head of the Political and Analytical Department of Georgia’s Ministry of Agriculture talked about these reasons with Agenda.ge.

Georgia increased its export volumes and one of the reasons for this is because the Government diversified its export markets,” she said.

Plus, Georgia increased the amount of agricultural products that is exported abroad. Today the country is exporting more agricultural products than years ago,” said Zviadadze.

Furthermore, Georgia signed its Association Agreement (AA) in June 2014 and part of it was the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) deal, which opened new markets and opportunities for Georgia’s agricultural products.”

Last year Georgia doubled its export of agricultural products to the EU compared to 2012. For the first time Georgia exported dry fruit, bluberry, kiwi,  green herbs and bay leafto the EU,” she added.

Another strong reason for Georgia’s increase in export volume was due to Russia removing its ban on Georgian products.

As a result Georgia continued exporting its products to Russia and this also helped to overall increase the export amount,” Zviadadze said.

While analyzing the reasons for Georgia’s reduction in imports, Zviadadze said this was caused by import reduction in Georgia’s main trade partner countries.

Due to the political and economic situations recently developing in Georgia’s main trade partner countries, Georgia gradually reduced imports of goods from these countries. Meanwhile, importer companies have a supply of wheat, sugar and other products and that is why they reduced the import volume. It is somehow also dependent on [Georgia] increasing the amount of locally produced products,” Zviadadze said.

This graphic shows how Georgia's negative trade balance was reducing year after year. Image by Mariam Chalauri/Agenda.ge.

Irrigation - main priority

To support the development of the sector the Ministry spent more than a 163 million GEL to rehabilitate agricultural infrastructure. In the past four years the Ministry launched 122 projects to improve irrigation channels, pumping stations, amelioration channels and hydro technical stations.

In total 163,716,800 GEL was spent on rehabilitation and operations works, designing and supervising, mapping, procurement and maintenance of equipment, machinery and special vehicles.

Currently 110,040 hectares of land are now irrigated and 31,575 hectares were fitted with adequate drainage.

Currently 110,040 hectares of land are now irrigated and 31,575 hectares were fitted with adequate drainage. Photo by Georgia's Ministry of Agriculture.  

Successful cooperatives

In the past four years 1,624 cooperatives were registered throughout Georgia and 13,968 shareholders were enrolled in cooperatives.

Cooperatives supported by the state received up to 40 percent co-financing for the purchase of tractors, while 15 agricultural cooperatives (for 5,000 cattle) received support to establish small enterprises that processed milk.

In total 667 agricultural cooperatives were benefactors of 1,515 specialist agricultural equipment and 201 tools to assist hand-sowing.

Meanwhile 131 agricultural cooperatives were given 11,197 hives and 19 cooperative received 19 honey extractor units. Cooperatives were also given more than 41,000 litres of containers to store and sell their honey.

This graphic shows how farming cooperatives have been growing year-on-year in Georgia. Image by Mariam Chalauri/Agenda.ge.

Wine

The Ministry of Agriculture was actively involved in boosting the country’s wine industry during the past four years. These activities included implementing the vineyard cadaster project, promoting Georgian vine and wine abroad, implementing permanent control of wine quality, developing a marketing strategy of Georgian wine and providing assistance to farmers during the vintage period.

Last year Georgian farmers processed 148,350 tonnes of grapes worth 107.4 million GEL.

During the past four years local farmers earned up to 400 million GEL revenue from their crops.

Between 2013 and 2016 Georgia exported wine worth $517 million USD, while between 2003 and 2012 Georgia exported $472 million worth of wine.

Last year Georgian wine companies participated in more than 50 exhibitions and events in different countries. Photo by N. Alavidze/Agenda.ge.

Animal health

To ensure animal health, sheep and cattle were given preventive vaccination that targeted a variety of diseases such as anthrax, FMD, rabies, pox and nodular dermatitis.

Georgia’s Agriculture Minister said veterinary preventive measures had increased by 11 times compared to 2012.

Between 2012 and 2016 more than two million cattle and 150,000 livestock were identified and more than a million heads were registered in an electronic database.

Since 2014, within the framework of the Brucellosis Monitoring Strategy 2016-2018, massive diagnostic surveys were carried out on cattle. In the past two years 254,387 cattle were examined. In 2016 alone 69,708 cattle were checked, said the Ministry.

Meanwhile since August 2016, for the first time in the post-Soviet period preventive vaccination of brucellosis is now in practice, which is currently being rolled out in all of Georgia regions. So far about 3,000 cattle have been vaccinated.

Furthermore Georgia’s Ministry of Agriculture has created a laboratory network of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Scientific-Research Centre of Agriculture.

In May this year the new Bio Security Points were established on Animal Movement Routes in Marneuli and Rustavi, in Georgia’s Kvemo Kartli region. Photo by the National Food Agency.  

Key achievements of Georgia's state agricultural policy 2012-2016

Since coming into power the Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia coalition has worked hard to rejuvenate the agricultural sector.

Overall 150 new enterprises were established, up to 700 re-equipped primary production and processing enterprises were created, more than 5,000 hectares of intensive orchards were planted and more than 200,000 hectares of agricultural land have been cultivated annually free of charge.

During the last four years the budget has increases 10 times. Within the preferential agricultural credit we have issued loans for more than 26,000 people; more than 700 beneficiaries now get assistance within the small farmers spring works assistance project; the agricultural insurance program has been implementing successfully and more than 28,000 policies are already issued. The process of developing agricultural cooperatives is continuing successfully and we are happy to see that there are more irrigated land plots in Georgia than before,” said Danelia.

This graphic shows the most important achievements of Georgia's state agricultural policy. Image by Mariam Chalauri/Agenda.ge.