About two months ago, the Georgian government announced the introduction of restrictions on wheat imports and their transit by road transport. However, this idea was soon abandoned in the wake of a concerted backlash from a number of stakeholders (including small-scale wheat importers, truck drivers, and flour-milling plants that use road-imported wheat).

October 15-17 2018, Salome Gelashvili and Pati Mamardashvili from the APRC traveled to Switzerland to participate in a kick-off meeting of the collaboration between APRC and the School of Agricultural, Forest, and Food Sciences (HAFL) at the Bern University of Applied Science.

On October 4, 2018, the ISET’s Salome Gelashvili and Pati Mamardashvili gave a presentation during an inception workshop, “Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) of the Draft Law on Windbreaks”. This RIA was commissioned to the APRC team by REC Caucasus and implemented with financial support from the IFAD in the framework of the AMMAR project.

This report covers the process and results from the value chain analysis conducted on the hazelnut sector in West Georgia. The study presents a basis to shape interventions of the forthcoming ‘Phase II: Fairtrade & Organic Hazelnut Value Chain Development for Small Farmers in Western Georgia’ project, which is to be implemented by the Consortium (ELKANA, HEKS/EPER, ANKA and PAKKA) with the financial support of DANIDA.

Agricultural production has decreased by 0.8% in the second quarter of 2018 compared to the same period in 2017. In spite of decline in agricultural production, FDI in agriculture has increased. While FDI in agriculture is relatively low compared to the other sectors of Georgian economy, it should be noted that, agricultural FDI in the second quarter of 2018 reaches its maximum for the last three years.