On December 22, Business and Economic Centre hosted working group meeting of the project “Legislative platform on agriculture and food safety issues”. The round table was organized in cooperation with “Mercy Corps” and during the meeting participants discussed the veterinary issues: epizootic situation in Georgia and animal identification/passportization.

The discussion was attended by the members of parliament from different committees – Agrarian Issues Committee, Budge and Finance Committee and majoritarian MPs from Samtskhe-Javakheti region; parliamentary staff and representatives of National Food Agency (NFA) and Prime-minister’s advisory board, international and local organizations. In cooperation with “Mercy Corps”, the meeting was also attended by lobby group members, funded by SDC, from four municipalities: Akhaltsikhe, Aspindza, Adigeni and Akhalkalaki.

For the first, working group participants discussed the epizootic situation in Georgia. Expert, Tengiz Kurashvili overviewed the veterinary problems in different regions of Georgia, animal disease control and prevention mechanism. Mr. Koba Dzamashvili, head of the veterinary department of NFA presented the official data of animal disease control to the audience and discussed the future plans of the department. NGOs and MPs had question on the draft code on food safety, especially about articles on veterinary issues and the representative of prime-minister’s advisory board provided the interested parties with detailed information on the questions.

The second issue discussed during the meeting was about the animal identification/passportization. Representatives of “Caucasus Genetics” Mr. Levan Tortladze and Mr. Giorgi Khatiashvili explained the participants that animal identification is directly related to the animal disease control mechanism as the document contains the detailed information about the cattle. They also discussed the perspective of implementing this system in Georgia and worldwide proven method on animal identification.

Lobby group members expressed their views and attitudes towards the both issues, explained the problems facing the villages on veterinary issue as all of them have day-to-day contact with farmers and are working in agriculture sector.

Business and Economic Centre continues working on agriculture and food safety issues and one of the priority themes is veterinary control system as there is a huge interest from the side of parliament and NGOs on veterinary issues.