In September 24-27 the International Potato Center (CIP) organized an event about “Developing a Potato Seed Certification System”, within the project “Enhancing Rural Livelihoods in Georgia: Introducing Integrated Seed Health Approaches to Local Potato Seed Systems”, supported by Austrian Development Agency. The workshop have held in Tbilisi (24-25 September, Hotel Biltmor) and Kazbegi (26-27 September, Hotel Rooms and fields in villages Sno and Sioni).
Four-day workshop supports to enable Georgian partners in their effort to develop a seed certification plan for Georgia. Participants have reviewed and discussed the previous system that existed in Georgia during the Soviet era, as well as current systems in other countries, with particular emphasis on only the recommendations by UNECE. During the event an additional concepts have also been reviewed that can help to make the seed system plan more successful, such as concepts of optimizing thresholds as described by Choudhury et al (2017), alternative forms of quality control, such as Quality Declared Seed (QDS), and the appropriateness of mandatory certification.
As an output of the workshop, participants have developed a roadmap for moving forward with seed certification of potato, including the steps to take. Draft roadmap will be developed by end of year and presented to stakeholders by February 2020.
69 participants attended the workshop, including representatives of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Ministry of Environment Protection and Agriculture of Georgia, Scientific-Research Center of Agriculture (SRCA), company “Agrico”, Georgian Technical University, National Intellectual Priority Center of Georgia (“SAKPATENTI”), Georgian Accreditation Center, Georgian Farmers’ Association (GFA), representatives of organization “CARE”, etc.
The media coverage can be viewed here:
https://www.imedi.ge/ge/video/42270/qronika-1400-saatze–24-seqtemberi-2019-tseli#!?page=2
14:35 min.
http://accentnews.ge/newsdetails.php?lang=1&NewsID=6554
https://ipress.ge/new/saqarthveloshi-kartophilis-theslis-sertiphitsirebis-sakithkhebi-ganikhiles/
http://frontnews.eu/news/ge/55532
http://reportiori.ge/inside.php?menuid=3&id=107747
http://pia.ge/post/283580-saqartvelosi-kartofilis-teslis-sertificirebis-sakitxebi-ganixiles
https://www.bpn.ge/article/60873-kartopilis-teslis-sertipicirebis-sakitxebi-ganixiles
Presentations presented during the event:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15AbQJyb-Je9G1l3ZdyALShgnLM-b2BVg?usp=sharing
Photos of the event here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/146579220@N04/albums/72157711068965117
https://www.flickr.com/photos/146579220@N04/albums/72157711055140136