Japan helps farmers in Kaspi district

On 27 January the opening ceremony of the Project for Improvement of the Farmers’ Cooperative in the Kaspi District, implemented within the framework of the Grassroots and Human Security Grant Assistance Programme of the Government of Japan, was held. The ceremony was attended by H.E. Mr. Masayoshi Kamohara, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Georgia, and representatives of the local authorities and NGOs connected with the project.

The Grant Contract of the above-mentioned project was concluded on 26 of August 2008 between the Embassy of Japan and NGO Nergebi. The aim of the project is to improve the Farmers’ Cooperative in the Kaspi District by providing agricultural machinery and rehabilitating its park and fruit processing factory. 4,540 households will benefit from the said project, which is worth 82,365 USD.

“I’m aware that the Kaspi District suffered from the armed conflict in August 2008 and it is very important for the local population to recover economically from the damage. I have heard that most of the population of Kaspi district is engaged in agriculture. I hope that this project contributes to the economic recovery of the district through providing for the small scale farmers of the cooperative access to modern agricultural machinery,” the Ambassador stated yesterday.

“Kaspi district is famous for growing tasty fruit like peaches, apricots, strawberries and so on. I sincerely hope that this project will contribute to increasing production of this high-quality fruit and improving the production of other agricultural products such as wheat, corn and hay. I have heard that you have a grape called ‘Chinuri’ (Chinese). I hope that one day I will taste a good peach called ‘Yaponuri’ (Japanese) produced in this district,” he added.

The Grassroots and Human Security Grant Assistance Programme gives grants to relatively small-scale projects undertaken by municipalities, medical institutions, academic institutes and NGOs which aim directly at the improvement of the living standards of Georgian people suffering from hardships. Such projects might be implemented in the fields of public health, medicine, elementary and secondary education, social protection and the environment, poverty reduction and increase of incomes.

This grant programme began in 1998. So far 94 projects, worth 6,987,354 USD, have been implemented under this programme in Georgia. Japan’s Official Development Assistance to Georgia has so far amounted to 337.6 million USD in total, covering a wide range of areas such as the improvement of economic infrastructure, the agricultural sector, the social sector, the cultural field and human resource development.