ISET’s international experiences are continuing to diversify, as APRC researchers gave a series of presentations at the “Regional and International Cooperation in Central Asia and South Caucasus: Recent Developments in Agricultural Trade” conference which took in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, between November 1-4. The conference was jointly organized by the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Samarkand Agricultural Institute.

Rati Kochlamazshvili had the pleasure of chairing the session dealing with research papers on agricultural cooperatives. At the end of the session, Nino Kakulia presented the APRC’s recent research exploring the size and sector effects in the performance of agricultural cooperatives in Georgia.

Pati Mamarashvili chaired the Food Policy session. After interesting presentations dealing with various food policy issues in Kyrgiztan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Pati Mamardashvili presented the APRC’s research on Georgia’s Agricultural Input Vouchers program. In particular, this research paper explored the targeting possibilities of the program by using individual farm data collected by Geostat.

Finally, Ia Katsia presented her research on the transmission of wheat prices from international to domestic markets. The study did not find statistical evidence for asymmetric price transmission, hinting at a rather competitive wheat market in Georgia. This is in line with other recent findings exploring market power in the Georgian wheat market.

All the presentations by the APRC researchers were followed by discussions, which provided useful feedback for further elaboration on the presented research studies.

In addition, the APRC researchers attended several interesting sessions of the conference, including those organized by the Food and Agricultural Association (FAO) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).