Farming touches all aspects of life in the Adigeni region of Georgia

“The roof was so damaged that you had to have an umbrella when it rained. The floor was so ruined that you could hear croaking frogs. You could hardly call the building a school, it looked more like a barn,” said one.

The rehabilitation of Benara school is one of the well-known achievements of a CARE project that began in 2002 in the Adigeni region of the former Soviet republic. The problem was so crucial that it became a number one priority in the list of problems raised at a community meeting held by project leaders.

“We have a beautiful new school – and we don’t suffer from the wind and rain any more. We are very thankful to CARE - not only our generation but future generations will benefit from this building as well. We never imagined somebody would help us realise this long-held dream of our village,” said one of the 98 pupils who study there.

SLAAR – Sustainable Livelihoods in Adigeni and Adjacent Region – is a project that aims to help develop sustainable incomes for people and communities in this poor, mountainous region of Georgia, where the traditional income from agriculture is very low. And the effects of helping farmers increase their income are felt in other areas – as Benara School pupils will confirm.

After the break-up of the Soviet Union, collective farms were privatised, leaving families with small plots of land and a lack of technical know-how and equipment. Markets were lost and the area became impoverished.

SLAAR has helped establish several farming-related businesses in Adigeni district by providing grants, credit and technical advice to owners.

Temuri Tsintskaladze, a livestock farmer in the Lelovani community, explained: “The SLAAR team helped me to learn new and more efficient methods of cattle breeding and as a result I was able to achieve a 20 to 30% rise in productivity in milking my cows. It also enabled me to significantly decrease expenses for feeding the animals in the winter period and increased their health status.”

Temuri was one of a number of farmers who benefited from a series of demonstrations given by CARE staff on subjects ranging from cattle breeding and how it can increase productivity and improve livestock health, to using the technique of artificial insemination.

Another great example is the cheese factory in the village of Ude, which has become a member of a network of dairy product shops in the capital, Tbilisi.

“Our cheese factory has become a milk collection center, where local livestock farmers can sell their produce and earn cash. This is a win-win situation for everybody in the village,” said owner Soso Balakhashvili.

“With the support of the SLAAR team, we received a credit of nearly $7,000 (£4,000) at a 10% flat rate from one of the local micro-finance institutions, which served as start-up capital for the enterprise. CARE has also helped us to learn new technologies for producing cheese and diversifying our product range.”

These are, of course, lots of success stories in the SLAAR areas, and as the project develops (into SLAAR II), it will focus on bringing local government into the picture. SLAAR II aims to link farmers to their regional authorities so they are able to advocate for greater change and can create the conditions needed for many more individual success stories to add up to an overall picture of sustained regional development over the next 3 years.