In a country first, eighteen Jara beekeepers in Ajara have received Bio certification. Jara honey was not even commercially harvested and branded until 2018, however the market for the honey has proved its strength so successfully that the beekeepers saw the opportunity to further promote their product through bio certification.
The conversion was relatively simple and certainly achievable as Jara honey is based on the capture of wild swarms and is relatively hands off. Since November 2018, the Jara Beekeepers Association (JBA) has been facilitating training and on-site recommendations; it also provides treatment of hives with a Bio vet medicine and special equipment for the mentioned Jara beekeepers. The beekeepers now follow the bio requirements; including keeping records, better husbandry, use of bio vet medicine. This allowed for smooth journey through the minimum one-year conversion period for certification.
Caucascert, the only organic certification company in Georgia issued the internationally recognized Bio certificates after laboratory results and field checks, which did not show any incompliance.
‘I am very proud that I was able to get Bio certification. It was challenging, as I did not have any kind of information before, but support from the JBA was crucial. I can already see the outcomes, because the process already contributed to minimizing disease risk and increase productivity of a Jara hive by thirty percent’ – Bio certified Jara beekeeper from Keda municipality.
Six more Jara beekeepers, including the Jara apiary in the Goderdzi Alpine Garden, are currently undergoing the certification process and might obtain certification by the end of this year.
The Jara honey mark was registered in February, 2020 and both its production and the market for it, including export is growing. More details on Jara honey to be found on www.jarahoney.com.
4 Beehives and their inhabitants from the high mountains of Ajara started their new life on the terrace of one of the largest Hotels in Batumi, Georgia, the Hilton Batumi, to produce honey for hotel guests. The General Manager of the Hilton, a keen birdwatcher and conservationist had the idea, seeking to showcase the beautiful countryside of Ajara and take this first step in illustrating the story of locally sourced food and the people who produce it.
By linking the hotel with the Ajara Beekeepers Business Association, the hives were installed. Urban beekeeping is increasingly popular in Europe as bee colonies decline and new ways are sought to develop a more ecologically sensitive lifestyle as urban centers grow. The Hilton also installed a honey showpiece at the breakfast buffet, of mounted honey comb, a large map of the 10 honey production gorges of mountainous Ajara and the indigenous flora on which the bees feed with the honey and comb sourced through honey producing company Matchakhela Ltd.
These initiatives which form a part of the ALCP programme’s work in the honey market system illustrate the great potential of the honey sector to feed into the promotion of Ajara as a great and varied tourist destination.
Income received from the Hotel hives will be donated to children in need in the rural municipalities.
News travels fast and perhaps other hotels may take up the initiative now it's been advertised through the Hilton chains newsletter.
Khelvachauri Women’s Room is taking its first steps in helping women access public resources voice their opinions and participate in local self-governance. The Women’s Room model that is being replicated in Ajara was first established in three municipalities of Kvemo Kartli from 2012 and subsequently in all municipalities of Kvemo Kartli and Samstkhe-Javakheti. The first opened in Batumi with the Association of Business Women of Ajara (ABWA) in the Ajara Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) was the first of all a new type of urban and business based women’s room, with the ideas of providing business trainings and an urban connection for the municipality based women’s rooms already opened in Keda, Shuakhevi, Khulo and Khelvachauri municipalities and soon to open in Kobuleti. The rooms are proving popular with these WR’s already providing more than 1200 services in three months.
The Women’s Rooms are a municipal service, a resource and consultancy space for facilitating open dialogue between local society and municipality officials, aiming at promoting women’s participation in the decision-making at the local level and increasing their access to municipal information and services including on health care and agricultural programmes. Women’s Rooms also offer a platform for trainings and meetings, supporting new initiatives and instilling women’s active participation. The space has been taken up quickly with the Association of Young Lawyers and the School of Democracy using the rooms to raise women’s awareness on human rights, economic and educational opportunities. Visitors can use library and internet for free. All of the Women’s Rooms in Ajara are easy to access on the first floor of municipality buildings and can be freely used by people with disabilities for meeting with Gamgebeli and other officials to speak about their issues. Gamgebelis hold weekly meetings with local citizens in the W’s Rs. A Free hotline number (Khulo 0 800 100 109; Shuakhevi 0 800 000 008; Keda 0 800 100 103; Khelvachauri 0 800 100 106) allows rural women to voice their issues in the Gamgeoba.
Women’s Room coordinators and municipal Gender Advisors, were trained on the importance of women involvement in decision-making using guidelines on The Application and Implementation of the Law on Gender Equality of Georgia by local self-government bodies to increase women’s participation in the community meetings, that was resulted in significant increase from 3% (2014) to 33% (2016) of women’s participation in these meetings.
To find out more about W’s Rs ongoing activities, visit Ajara (Batumi,Khulo, Shuakhevi, Keda, Khelvachauri), Kvemo Kartli (Dmanisi, Tsalka, Tetritskaro, Rustavi,Marneuli, Aspindza) and Samtskhe Javakheti (Akhaltsikhe,Adigeni, Borjomi ) W’s Rs Facebook pages.
The first Cheese Factory in Ajara, Natural Produktsia Ltd was officially opened in Dioknisi, Khulo Municipality.
Construction of the factory started in April, 2015 and has been functioning since October. Natural Produktsia Ltd is the first and only cheese factory in upper Ajara producing Imeruli cheese currently at the largest scale in Georgia. The factory is set up with modern equipment and is producing cheese in accordance with FS&H standards. The factory collects milk from 22 villages of Khulo municipality from more than 300 farmers to date, who have now have a source of daily income. The factory processes up to 6 tons of milk daily and makes Imeruli cheese, Sulguni cheese, cottage cheese and butter. It employs 23 local farmers, out of which 11 are women. The factory is the sister factory of the family enterprise Tzesari Ltd whose factory in Sakdrioni village Tsalka produces sulguni which is sold in Carrefour in Tbilisi and in the Batumi Agrarian Market, leading hotels, such as Hilton, Sheraton, Radisson; restaurants - Porto Franco, Munchen, Pier Batumi, Riviera; supermarkets like Goodwill, Nugeshi, Nikora, Ialchin, Willmart, Absolute, etc.
Djakhangir Abasov, 2500 sheep owner from Sagarejo municipality: “It is very good and almost unbelievable that we’ll bath our ship and cattle for free. We were paying to private owners 0.5 Tetri per sheep which is 100-150 GEL for a flock plus money for the chemicals”.
Over the last 18 months, programme client Agricultural video producer Mosavali has been developing technical video lessons on key aspects of livestock husbandry and beekeeping. The videos pitched at reaching farmers through social media and no longer than 3 minutes viewing time have taken off. 9 livestock and 7 beekeeping videos have been produced and uploaded to networks.
The participation of Alliances Lesser Caucasus Programme at DCED Global Seminar was highly appreciated and named within the top 3 seasons of the event by the attended audience. The seminar on the Standards for Results Measurement was hosted by DCED in Bangkok from 14 to 16 March 2016.
Women's economic empowerment, assessing attribution, measuring job creation, and using results information to manage programmes – were the main topics of presentations and discussions featured on the seminar. 130 participants from 38 countries, representing 52 organizations, field programmes and donor agencies gathered for the information exchange, for deepening understanding of DCED standards and for participating in plenary discussions on cutting edge themes.
The full agenda, presentations with relevant links and final summary report are available on the following link: DCED Seminar2016
