On Thursday, December 6, the Deputy Head of the Agricultural Policy Research Center (APRC) Irakli [Rati] Kochlamazashvili, presented the ‘Georgia’s Beef Market Review’ at the kick-off workshop of the USDA funded Georgia Food for Progress (GFP) project on Livestock Sector Development in Georgia. The event was organized by the implementer consortium members, namely Land O’Lakes International Development, the Georgian Farmers Association, and Michigan State University. The representatives of USDA from Georgia and Turkey, the Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of Georgia, the head of the Agrarian Committee at the Parliament of Georgia, donors, international and local NGO representatives, farmers and farmer associations, sector experts, and other stakeholders all participated in the workshop.

The purpose of the event was to discuss the key problems of the Georgian livestock sector to help the implementer consortium fine-tune its approach towards Georgia’s livestock sector development. This five-year project (which has a 17 mln. USD budget) aims to (1) increase livestock market systems productivity and (2) expand trade of agriculture (livestock products). To achieve those objectives, the implementer consortium will work in the following directions:

a) Expand market access;

b) Improve sanitary and phytosanitary standards;

c) Post-harvest handling and storage;

d) Improve productivity;

e) Improve access to financial services; and

f) Capacity building to inform food safety policy development.

The implementer consortium has been closely working with ISET’s Agricultural Policy Research Center (APRC). We congratulate the implementer consortium and Georgia in general for starting this very important project, which intends to significantly improve the Georgian Livestock Sector over the next five years.