MaximsNewsNetwork: 03 November 2009 - World Bank: Despite recent conflict in Georgia, the country is pushing ahead with its plans to expand food production. The agricultural sector remains well below its potential, but the World Bank is helping Georgia's government finance lines of credit so farmers and agricultural producers can grow their businesses.
Twice a day trucks from this chicken farm roar off to the capital, delivering 36,000 eggs to neighborhood shops and supermarkets.
Computers regulate the lives of the thousands of hens living and laying here. They control air temperature, feeding times and egg gathering.
These state-of-the-art henhouses were funded through credit lines provided to the Georgian government with support from the World Bank. Selected commercial banks disbursed the money that helped this business, among others, get off the ground.
. SOUNDBITE (Georgian) Tamaz Edisherashvili General Director, Poultry Raising Factory of Kumisi:
We used the line of credit from the World Bank to renovate two henhouses as well as the feedlot.
Demand for eggs in Georgia exceeds supply; in a few months the company will almost double the number of eggs it collects daily.
Employee numbers will increase from 100 to 130—a boon for neighboring villages hard hit by the collapse of big agriculture a decade ago.
When demand is lower, they exports eggs to Iraq.
Chicks are bought abroad and raised until they are old enough to lay eggs. The owners dream to one day hatch their own chicks, and also to process chicken meat.
SOUNDBITE (Georgian) Tamaz Edisherashvili General Director, Poultry Raising Factory of Kumisi:
The potential of our factory is big. We plan to become a giant agricultural company.
Elguja Nozadze also has big dreams. His company processes poultry—two thousand five hundred kilos a day.
Slaughtering is done by hand. Teams of women dunk chickens in boiling water then pluck them in this one room--a tedious, hot process.
With the twin crises of the financial meltdown and last summers war with Russia—credit became hard to find.
But Elgujas assembly line is ready. As soon as one last crucial piece of equipment arrives, chickens will be processed mechanically.
SOUNDBITE (Georgian) Elguja Nozadze, Director General, Nozadze-Gantiadi Individual Enterprise:
The World Bank credit helped us expand our family business. And it came just in time so we wouldnt have to stop production.
Tsira Khabelashili lives in the neighboring village. She is on the job caring for chicks six days a week. The only breadwinner in her family, she supports five people on her salary. She says mechanization is a good thing, not a threat.
SOUNDBITE (Georgian) Tsira Khabelashvili, Poultry Worker:
Were not expecting any jobs to be cut. Just because there is new equipment doesnt mean there are fewer workers.
In fact, Elguja says hell be able to employ more people soon. Domestic demand for chicken is so high he has no need to export. But his new equipment is certified for the European Union, so hell be ready to supply Europe when the time comes.
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