Aiming to contextualize the challenges and opportunities faced by Georgian trout farmers, the ISET Policy Institute, in cooperation with CARE international and the Georgian Farmers Association (GFA) organized a trout sector stakeholders’ forum in Kutaisi on December 4th, 2015. The forum focused on the industry’s dynamics regarding input suppliers, farmers, cooperatives, market intermediaries, consumers, and exporters with the overall goals of improving productivity in the sector, connecting farmers with new business opportunities (by product and market diversification), exploring export markets, and developing and managing the Georgian trout sector.
Attending the forum were representatives of international and domestic agricultural organizations, the ministry of Agriculture’s regional information and consulting centers, local government officials, and several stakeholders from the private sector.
On November 24, the ISET Policy Institute hosted an ENPARD workshop representing all four consortia (CARE, OXFAM, Mercy Corps, and PIN). The workshop featured Michaela Garguláková from People In Need (PIN) who talked about the Monitoring and Evaluation system and gave a presentation about the monitoring indicators of the ENPARD project. She also talked about Open Data Kit which is an innovative data collection tool that facilitates data collection process in the field. In addition, Lasha Lanchava from the ISET team presented his proposal aimed at evaluating the impact of ENPARD grants on cooperative behavior of firms and firm performance.