Organization: Association of Journalists for Regional Development

Location: Kutaisi, Georgia

Year: 2013

The Georgian government has introduced a program to support small farmers. That would probably have been OK if one part of this program had not given farmers free of charge access to the pesticides. Association of Journalists for Regional Development decided to open a debate on the government’s program and to organize campaign for a healthier agricultural production – to exclude or to regulate free pesticides.

With the help of experts, this group leads a dialogue with the Ministry of Agriculture on the possibility of modifying the program support. The initiative wants to have some tests on randomly purchased agricultural products analyzed and also the group wants to publicize this issue.