Minister of Agriculture preset Environment and Rural Development 2030 vision

By Natalia Kochiashvili

Friday, July 2

South Caucasus Ecosystem Research and Restoration Center will be established in Krtsanisi Forest Park.

“One of the main tasks is to make our country more self-sufficient, we are not against imports, but we can produce more,” announced the PM.

The Minister of Environment Protection and Agriculture, Levan Davitashvili, presented the long-term vision ‘Environment and Rural Development 2030’ on 1st of July. At the initiative of Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili, the ministries will present their visions within the framework of the government's 10-year plan. The Ministry of Environment and Agriculture is the first one to present the long-term vision for the development of the sector.

According to Davitashvili, Georgia needs appropriate processing capacities, storage infrastructure, packaging infrastructure and relevant investments to house primary production, because Georgian products must be absolutely competitive and supplied to the market in a way that meets modern standards and requirements. He emphasized that modern farms and enterprises are functioning in the country within the framework of support measures for the agricultural sector; Cheap cash resources are available to entrepreneurs and farmers involved in agriculture, which makes investing in the sector more attractive.

“The long-term agricultural development plan envisages more support for storing and processing farms; GEL1.7 billion is planned to be invested in the sector over the next 10 years, of which the state's share is more than 700 million,” he said, concluding that as a result of the local production will increase even more in the country.

At present, the current credit portfolio to improve the production processes of primary production, processing and storage of agriculture is up to GEL1.3 billion, which is 22 times more than the existing credit portfolio in the field of agriculture in 2012 (GEL57 million). According to the Ministry of Environment Protection and Agriculture, with the financial support of the state, within the programs of the Rural Development Agency, more than 1000 enterprises have been created/re-equipped and are functioning.

The minister also informed that a total of 13 fully functional agricultural laboratories will create a network throughout Georgia, with national and international standards.

“The State Laboratory of Agriculture has the status of the relevant accreditation status of the national standard SST ISO / IEC 17025: 2017/2018 and has introduced a quality management system in accordance with the requirements of the international standard ISO 9001: 2015,” he announced.

According to him, new, international standard research methods are being studied, introduced and further accredited in the laboratory every year. In the next 10 years, the number of studies currently available in the laboratory will increase by 50%. The specialists of the laboratory successfully pass the international qualification tests every year,” the Ministry of Environment Protection said in its statement.

The National Agency for Wildlife of the Ministry of Environment and Agriculture is actively working on the Krtsanisi Forest Park development plan. As a result of the implementation of the plan, a center for research and restoration of the South Caucasus ecosystems will be established in the forest park. It is planned to build a fish farm of Mtkvari species in the forest-park, restore 7 dried -up ponds and arrange up to 50 picnic locations.

After the large-scale work carried out by the Wildlife Agency, the park will regain its most important function and become a recreational space between Tbilisi and Rustavi.