Otar Shamugia met local farmers in Gori

Georgia: Minister of Environment and Agriculture Otar Shamugia, together with Deputy State Trustee of Shida Kartli Simon Guledan, were in the village of Mejvriskhevi in Gori municipality, where they visited the apple orchard planted with the support of the state programme “Plant Future”, met with local farmers and heard detailed information about harvesting and accommodation from them.

“We, on the one hand, have been helping farmers to set up intensive gardens, and over the last years, within the program “Plant the Future”, more than 2000 ha intensive and super-intensive gardens have been set up, from which we expect both good and high-quality crops.” Plus, they have our support in setting up refrigeration farms, there are dozens of refrigeration farms in the inner city alone. “It is important for farmers to have conditions for storing crops up to standards and then implementing it gradually,” Otar Shamugia said.

The minister also looked at the modern standards machinery for apple harvesting, which the farmer purchased with state co-financing.

LLC “Iberia Group” owns an apple orchard on 10 ha in the village of Mejvriskhevi of Gori municipality, including the support of the programme “Plant Future.”, in 2021, they planted apples on 5 ha and set up a borehole for which they received co-financing of 50,000 GEL from the Rural Development Agency. In 2023, the company benefited from the programme”Plant the Future” for setting up anti-hail systems in the apple orchard planted on 10 ha. The company implements its yield on the local market.

Farmer Irakli Edilashvili noted that garden insurance is necessary for each farmer, especially when this process is financially simplified and about 70% of the insurance is financed by the state.