17
July
2015
ISET-PI launched the Retail Food Price Index in July 2015. The project is implemented thanks to the cooperation of the largest Georgian retail chains including Carrefour, Goodwill, Fresco, and SPAR. While data from the individual retailers are confidential, the average of prices from all stores can be combined to create a general FPI, as well as FPIs for individual products.
17
July
2015
The first tea bushes appeared in Western Georgia in 1847, and since then tea production has played a significant, yet widely unknown, role in Georgia’s history. The humid and subtropical climate of Western Georgia in the regions of Guria, Samegrelo, Adjara, Imereti, and Abkhazia are ideal for harvesting tea, and this was a fact eventually recognized by businessmen outside Georgia.
13
July
2015
An average Georgian household spends more than 40% of its budget on food. It, therefore, stands to reason that Georgian consumers are quite sensitive to food prices, which may be very good news considering recent developments in global commodity markets. According to the latest World Bank’s Food Price Watch, “international food prices declined by 14% between August 2014 and May 2015, sliding into a five-year low.”
01
July
2015
On July 1, 2015, the Stakeholders’ Forum on the Tea Sector took place in Kutaisi. This was a first event in a series of dialogues about agriculture and rural development in Georgia organized by the ISET Policy Institute in partnership with CARE International in the Caucasus, the Regional Development Association, and the Georgian Farmers Association.
05
June
2015
On Friday, June 5th ISET hosted Loredana Sorg, Mercator Fellow of International Affairs, who gave a presentation titled "The Georgian Hazelnut Value Chain and the Potential of Cooperatives". The objective of the study was to understand how and at which level value is added, to identify critical elements for a competitive hazelnut production in Georgia, and to reflect the potential of cooperatives for the development of the value chain and in particular for organic fair-trade hazelnuts.
