The President of Georgia visited the home of a resident of the village of Dilakhauri in the Zestaponi region - Revaz Suknidze and symbolically handed him the first voucher for spring agricultural work. As the President mentioned, similar vouchers will be given out to all the families living in the regions of Georgia. Mikheil Saakashvili talked with the host about development of the agricultural field and discussed with him the planned projects in this direction. The Head of State mentioned, that compared to the previous years, much more land is used but, as he said, farmers still have certain problems. According to his statement, these vouchers are specifically to help them overcome these problems.
“I thought a lot about how it might be possible to encourage these people, who have small lands. In the past years we brought in a lot of tractors, but it still turned out that there are problems, so now we decided to help village inhabitants with 30 GEL vouchers for spring jobs. These vouchers can be used by people for agricultural work, renting a tractor and cultivation, as well as for obtaining fertilizer. In the mountainous and small land areas instead of vouchers people can directly receive 35kg of fertilizer worth 70 GEL and is enough for processing 1000 square meters. In mountainous places this will solve all the problems. Vouchers will be given out everywhere but the larger cities. Even in the regions, those people who live in apartments and may not even have land, can cash them from June 1. It may not be a big relief for the families with means, but it is really useful for those of little means.”- stated the President of Georgia during his conversation with the host.
The President received information about the corn harvest from the local people. As it was explained to him, the majority of the inhabitants had a very good harvest of American corn. As they said, the market was filled with local grain this year. This was shown in the prices of corn as well as farming products.
Mikheil Saakashvili also touched on the issue of scientific agronomists and mentioned that each village must have at least one qualified specialist. Local residents will be employed in the rural centers, which will be opened within the state program.
“Nothing is as important as the village”, - noted The President.
Mikheil Saakashvili also spoke to the youngest member of the family, Ana Suknidze and awarded her with a portable computer for studying well.
The 30 GEL voucher is a government’s aid, which can be used for performing spring work, necessary procedures for cultivating or buying fertilizer.
The distribution of the vouchers will start from Dec 20th and rural residents will be able to use it until Dec 31, 2012. In addition it should be noted that residents not having agricultural land can cash vouchers at any “Liberty Bank” branch starting from Jun 1, 2012.