Georgian Farmers' Association Presents Dairy Industry Policy Brief

On Monday, December 17, the Georgian Farmers’ Association presented their first policy brief, titled Enforcement Challenges of Technical Regulation on Milk and Dairy Products, within the format of a public-private dialogue on issues facing the Georgian dairy industry.

The Farmers' Association developed the brief in collaboration with project partners ISET Policy Institute (ISET-PI), Civil Development Agency (CiDA), Export Development Association (EDA), and Association Atinati. The project, titled Food and Agriculture SME Support Initiative (FASSI), is funded by the European Union. 

One of the main recommendations of the policy brief was that the roles of the public and private sectors must be clearly distinguished, and a complex approach should be developed to solve the problems in the dairy industry.

"Given Georgia's reputation and its unique Sulguni and Matsoni products, we very much welcome the choice made for the first policy brief under the EU funded project. We believe that there are significant market opportunities and hope that today's discussion will contribute to achieve higher productivity levels and better food safety in these sectors." said Dominik Papenheim, Programme Officer at the Delegation of the European Union to Georgia.

Nino Zambakhidze, Chairwoman of Georgian Farmers' Association, noted that "In order to encourage the development of dairy sector, it is important to support the intensive farms. This will enable to resolve the existing challenges such as low productivity, inappropriate animal feeding techniques, lack of pasture management skills among farmers and lack of qualified veterinarians. At the same time, consumer awareness on new regulations as well as on possible threats for human health associated with usage of unlabeled milk and dairy products needs to be increased. In this process, strengthening the BSOs and collaboration of public and private sector is very decisive.”

The FASSI project is dedicated to strengthening the capacity of business support organizations in the food and agriculture sectors to help them better assist their members to comply with the new regulations according to the DCFTA and gain access to the EU market.

By Samantha Guthrie

Photo: European Union