In this study, the role of Family Farming was assessed with regard to three dimensions (economic, environmental and social) of sustainable development. Literature review, SWOT analysis, individual interviews with stakeholders and case studies were conducted in order to define the role of Family Farming in the sustainable development of Georgian agriculture.
In summer, social media were flooded with videos showing your friends (and celebrities of all levels of prominence) pouring buckets of icy water over their heads. While some people enjoyed watching this (and even participated in the Ice Bucket Challenge), many were unnerved by this charity campaign which was hardly distinguishable from an ordinary spam attack, were it not for the fact that now your friends and acquaintances were spamming you. A third group, however, showed the most interesting reaction: they became moral about it.
In September 2014 Agricultural Policy Research Centre (APRC) at ISET Policy Institute started training in “Value Chain Analysis” (VCA) for The Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia (MoA). The training was funded by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Twelve employees from different departments of MoA were trained. The aim of this training was to familiarize participants with the concept of VCA and present various qualitative and quantitative tools used in VCA.
On September 22-26, 2014 researchers from the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO) in Germany visited ISET in the framework of their research tour to Georgia. Several panel discussions and workshops were conducted with the goal to discuss current challenges of agriculture and rural development in transition countries.
About 9 months ago, we were already discussing the oddities of egg prices in Georgia (“The Georgian Egg of Discord”, by Giorgi Kelbakiani and Eric Livny). At that time, huge volatility in egg prices could be explained by interesting political dynamics. Under the UNM government, local producers of eggs were largely protected from external competition through non-tariff import barriers, called by the ministry of agriculture a “complete violation of law and international agreements”.