Innovation is not necessarily about Silicon Valley Hi-Tech startups. It can happen here and now. In particular, contrary to what we have been hearing from our liberal politicians, there is plenty of scope for innovation in Georgia’s agriculture!

On November 24, the ISET Policy Institute hosted an ENPARD workshop representing all four consortia (CARE, OXFAM, Mercy Corps, and PIN). The workshop featured Michaela Garguláková from People In Need (PIN) who talked about the Monitoring and Evaluation system and gave a presentation about the monitoring indicators of the ENPARD project.

On November 12th, President of ISET and ISET-PI, Eric Livny moderated a panel discussion on “Competing Water Needs” organized by the USAID policy-advocacy project Governing for Growth in Georgia (G4G). Representatives of all water-using sectors were invited to participate. The discussion included the viewpoints of stakeholders in the agriculture, environment, and energy sectors.

After many years of chaos and utter collapse, Georgia’s once glorious tea industry is again showing signs of life. More and more individual farmers and businesses – mostly very small, but some quite ambitious, such as Geoplant (known for its “Gurieli” brand) – grow, process, and pack tea. Despite competition from major producing countries and international brands, Georgian tea has great export potential because of the value attached to it all over the former Soviet Union.

On November 5th, 2015 APRC at ISET Policy Institute presented the final results of a study called Regulatory Impact Assessment on crop insurance in Georgia. The goal of the workshop was to present and discuss the final results of RIA which was conducted by the APRC team from June to October 2015.