Otar Shamugia, Minister of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of Georgia and Giorgi Urushadze, State Representative in Guria have visited hazelnut garden of farmer Nikoloz Gobronidze in the village of Natanebi, Ozurgeti municipality, and attended the harvest.
“Hazelnuts are one of the strategic crops for our country, which has a huge potential. As we all are aware, the sector is facing a challenge of pests attack. In order to handle this problem, the government, farmers, association of farmers are altogether conducting mass measures. For this purpose we have mobilized a huge amount of finances, technical and human resources. International organizations and experts are also assisting. Our goal is to harvest high-quality products. Only high-quality products are demanded and competitive on either local or foreign markets.
We will definitely achieve better results. Hazelnut farmers are much better organized, we have much better orchards than a few years ago. This progress must continue, as a result of which we will have a good quality crop, which will be reflected in the price and income of our farmers," Minister Shamugia said.
The farmer Nikoloz Gobronidze has developed hazelnuts garden on 20 hectares within the project Plant the Future. GEL 10, 500 has been co-financed by the Rural Development Agency. The farmer received preferential agro-credit with amount of GEL 50, 000.
Plant the Future is a program initiated by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture and is implemented by the Rural development Agency with the state budget.
Co-financing of the government already exceeds GEL 133 million.
