Tbilisi Hosts First National Dairy Congress

TBILISI – The first national dairy conference is being held in Tbilisi, Georgia on March 10th. The main theme of the congress is improving food safety and competitiveness.

The event is organized by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Apart from the government officials, the congress was attended by the sector experts, suppliers of materials and equipment, manufacturers and farmers.

The event aims to support investment in the dairy sector, discuss the latest food safety standards and promote knowledge of modern technologies.

According to a study commissioned by the FAO and the EBRD, Georgia’s dairy sector is dominated by small producers using obsolete technologies, and with very low productivity and poor hygiene standards. The study also suggests that simple improvements, such as better feed and fodder production, improved animal health, welfare and farm management as well as hygienic milk-handling can improve the productivity of dairy milk farming by up to 35 per cent. The Congress aims to share this information with all market participants.

The congress paid special attention to the difficulties dairy farmers face in Georgia, such as lack of resources for technical capacity and modernization of modern farms and processing companies; as well as modern technologies and management practices, ranging from animal food and the necessary environment to hygiene, which farmers in dairy business have to take into account in order to be able to increase productivity and improve the quality of dairy products.

The National Dairy Congress is one of the initiatives carried out within FAO/EBRD project on improving food safety in dairy sector through transferring knowledge. The central component of the project is training and knowledge transfer to farmers in the dairy sector.

By Ana Akhalaia

Edited by Chloe Diamond