French Development Agency approves €300,000 to support modernisation of agriculture in Georgia

The French Development Agency (AFD) has approved a grant of €300,000 under its technical expertise and experience exchange (FEXTE) fund to support the newly established National Agency for Sustainable Land Management and Land Use Monitoring of Georgia to promote the development of modern agriculture.

In October 2020, experts from the agriculture, rural development and biodiversity division of AFD visited Georgia to define the different components of this technical cooperation programme.

A detailed study will be carried out to further analyse the challenges related to agricultural land management in Georgia, such as the high level of land fragmentation, the level of productivity and security of land tenure. 

Head of the AFD South Caucasus regional office Raphael Jozan said that only 30% of land is currently registered in Georgia, while the status of communal land systems is not clearly defined and the level of fragmentation is very high. 

French Ambassador to Georgia Diego Colas said that after a year of the Covid-19 and accompanying economic crisis, ‘it is clear that agriculture is a strategic economic sector’. 

Georgia has considerable competitive advantage in this sector and we, in France, working as part of Team Europe, are keen to be a major partner of Georgian authorities as they strive to develop this sector... Helping operationalise the [newly created agency] and helping it develop its strategy to meet the many challenges of land use in Georgia will be key to the development of a modern Georgian agriculture that provides good revenues for farmers", said Colas.

He said that since 2018 AFD has provided technical assistance to small scale dynamic semi-commercial farmers in Georgia.

"12 pilot projects are operational, eight more are projected to be operational before the end of the year", Colas added.