Tengiz Nasaridze, Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection and Agriculture, held a working meeting at the coordination center.

“Organizing the apple-picking/harvesting process is crucial. We opened the coordination center, which will oversee and run this process. The state program encourages the sale of non-standard apples, ensuring that not a single kilogram of apple crops are left behind. Enterprises producing apple concentrate from this raw material are increasing the country’s export potential, and the most important fact is that we carry out exports to our key, strategic market, the EU countries. The state continues to support farmers. Our goal is to increase the number of quality, high-yielding apple orchards, which will take some time. Moreover, we urge farmers to take advantage of state programs - state initiatives, which will help them to boost their production and improve quality”, - said Tengiz Nasaridze.

Simon Guledani, the First Deputy State Representative of Shida Kartli, Giorgi Pantsulaia, the First Deputy Director of the Rural Development Agency, Lasha Shalamberidze, the Head of the Coordinating Center, and representatives of apple processing enterprises attended the meeting.

Under the state program “Promoting the Sale of Non-standard Apples”, the Rural Development Agency subsidizes non-standard apples at ten tetri per 1 kg of non-standard apples. The program includes all those fruit processing enterprises that will purchase 1 kg of non-standard (poor quality) apples at no less than 25 tetri from individuals employed in the horticulture sector by December 15, 2024.

In addition, a sub-component of the preferential agro-credit project (a credit for working capital) was launched to facilitate the smooth handling/storage of non-standard apples.

Furthermore, Nasaridze visited the intensive apple orchard planted with state support in the village of Kvarkheti, Gori municipality, where he got acquainted with the delivery of non-standard apples in the fruit processing enterprise “Bio juice”.

Tariel Munjishvili, a farmer, planted an apple orchard on 3 ha in Kvarkheti village, Gori municipality, as part of a state initiative and received a grant of GEL 30,000. This year, a farmer expects to harvest 60 tonnes of apples.

The company “Bio Juice” is involved in the state program promoting the sale of non-standard apples. The fruit processing company benefited from state support and received an agro-loan worth GEL 9 million as part of the “Preferential Agrocredit” program. The company hires thirty locals seasonally and can receive and process 150 tonnes of apples daily. The concentrate obtained from the processing of non-standard apples is exported to Germany.