Farmers have restored tea plantations in several municipalities of Georgia by means of the government programmes.
A tea enterprise located in the village of Katsikhe, Chiaura Municipality is one of the enterprises supplying the local market with the produced tea.
It also exports some of its produce.
Entrepreneur Tariel Chubinidze says that the region ensures all preconditions for the tea production to become a leading activity.
He says the village ‘had a sigh of relief’ when the tea plantation was restored as the people have their income now.
80 people are employed per season and 15 – permanently, he said.
‘The project management agency helped us purchase the special machinery. The roller processes about 50 kg tea. We plan to purchase another one,’ Chubinidze says.
The restored area includes 10 hectares that allows to receive about 5 -6 tonnes of harvest in about three years. Notably, 2.5 hectares out of the area was restored with the entrepreneur’s expenses, without any state programme assistance.
Chubinidze says small batches of the Katsikhe tea have already been exported to Turkey and Czech Republic.
A total of 49 beneficiaries are involved in the government programme ‘Georgian Tea’ across Georgia. The entire investment is 2,551,642 GEL. The government allocated 1,775,488 GEL.
The total area of the plantations to be restored is 1,024 hectares.
Маri Chitaia
News Author