The agricultural cooperative movement started a few years ago in Georgia and the registered farmer groups are currently still at the embryonic stage of development. The Soviet legacy and rather negative attitude towards earlier forms of cooperation (Kolkoz and Sovkhoz) has gradually faded among farmers, and today more than 1,400 cooperatives are registered with the Agricultural Cooperative Development Agency under the Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia.

With EU financial and technical assistance, as well as training and education on cooperation and agribusiness, small farmers in Georgia are benefitting from economies of scale, cutting their production costs and increasing efficiency.

In 2013, as a follow-up to public consultations on improving the acting company law in Georgia, a working group was established to elaborate a new Draft Law of Georgia on Entrepreneurs (“Draft Law”). The working group was created under the Private Law Reform Council of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia, the USAID-funded Judicial Independence and Legal Empowerment Project, which was succeeded by the Promoting Rule of Law in Georgia (PROLoG) Activity, with both projects implemented by the East-West Management Institute (EWMI), was a cooperating partner

On 14 July 2017, ENPARD implementing organisation CARE and its partner ISET Policy Institute (ISET-PI), in cooperation with other ENPARD implementing partners (Oxfam, Mercy Corps, People in Need and UNDP Adjara) presented the results of ENPARD Cooperatives Survey, which assesses the performance of EU-supported cooperatives for the period 2014-2016.

Georgia has a number of laws and regulations governing water resources, dating back to the late nineties and partially amended after 2003. Changes, however, have not always followed a clear and coherent strategy. As a result, in the words of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the current legislation is an “unworkable and fragmented system”.

Georgia’s agri-food export is concentrated in few products and few undemanding markets, making it highly vulnerable to shocks on a small number of commodity and geographical markets. At the same time, the diversity of climatic conditions and ample water resources create significant growth and diversification potential for Georgian agriculture