Georgian Background

Georgia is an independent democratic nation about the size of South Carolina with a population of 4.5 million people.  Historically due to Georgia’s productive land and strategic location bridging Europe and Asia, Georgia has always attracted conquerors - the last being the USSR which ruled from 1922 to 1991.  Finally after 70 years Georgia regained its independence.  Unfortunately in the August War of 2008 Russia invaded and now occupies a region in the center of the country as well as a region of the northwest.  Relations with Russia are very difficult.   Throughout history Russia was a major market for agricultural production, but not now.

During the Soviet times each Georgian household had a house with from one half to one acre of land upon which they gardened and produced fruits.  The Soviet system nationalized all private farms creating collective farms and State farms.  Collective farms were of an efficient scale with mechanization and science based practices with hybrid seed, fertilizer, irrigation and pest control.  Because of the more than twenty climatic regions from subtropical to mountain plateaus to semi desert they can produce diverse array of food crops.  That was very significant to Russia as their only national source of citrus and many other fruits.  The foods produced on the collective farms were shipped to Moscow but the home gardens provided diverse, high quality and abundant nutrition for Georgians.  By soviet regulation, Georgians were restricted to market their garden produce only locally.  However, resourceful Georgians somehow managed to react to the high demand for quality food within Russia and covertly reached that market.  With this enterprise Georgian backyard farmers accumulated resources to raise their lifestyle.

The interesting thing about this backyard farming is that the productivity per acre of land yielded more than five times the yield of the collective farms.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 the land of the collective farms was privatized giving each Georgian from one half to one and one half hectares of land (one to four acres).  But, with independence the black-market high value produce market evaporated.  Also with independence the support for agriculture infrastructure (irrigation systems, input suppliers) and very significantly, the support for science based agriculture information disappeared.  Recently in America we see the cuts of our Extension Service which has been the force behind the greatness of the American agriculture engine.  It is eye opening to observe Georgian agriculture, with its outstanding productive resources, struggle with food security for lack of the indirect support of an agriculture information service.