The Director of the Agricultural Scientific-Research Center (SRCA), Professor Levan Ujmajuridze, together with the staff of the center, met with local farmers in the Tsageri municipality.
The Scientific Research Center for Agriculture (SRCA) shared the glimpses of the meeting on its Official Facebook page on Friday, July 18, 2025. The Center also shared a small note about the meeting along with its photographs.
According to the small note shared by the Scientific Center, it should be noted that the meeting was held in the village of Tsiperchi, on the plot of one of the local farmers, where local endemic species and traditional varieties of wheat are brought with seed material provided by the center.
“Returning traditional varieties to regions of origin is an important step on the way to preserving biodiversity and sustainable development of agriculture.” Our goal is to ensure that the genetic resources harvested and recovered in the hands of farmers will continue to live and be used, reproduced, and preserved,” Levan Ujmajuridze noted.
He also mentioned, “On the demonstration plot, there is a collection of 88 samples, in which 24 local samples were searched by the Center in Georgia, and 64 genetic samples were returned from the Genbank of Gatersleben in Germany.”
“Produced wheat types and varieties have almost disappeared from the Racha-Lechkhumi region. Their genetic material was stored in foreign gene banks for years. Today they have returned to the land where it once originated and spread”, – said Tamar Jinjikhadze, the head of the Standards, Certification, Planning and Economic Analysis Service of the Scientific and Research Center.
Returning traditional breeds is underway as part of FAO’s project “Conserving traditional breeds adapted to climate change in agriculture — strengthening the link between in situ and ex situ conservation forms”.
