Small-scale farmers in western Georgia now have a fully equipped facility that will help them expand their earnings. The agricultural cooperative is now up and running, following an opening ceremony, and farmers are making the most of this new opportunity.
IOCC and partner Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA) helped farmers here establish a new cooperative, with funding from the IOCC Foundation and USAID. IOCC and CNFA built and equipped the facility, where co-op members can now bring their produce and have it dried so they can sell it at market. Dried produce fetches a better price, and because it lasts longer than fresh items, it can provide income beyond the growing season.
This IOCC project equipped the co-op for fruit and vegetable processing by providing a sorting table, a peeling machine, a seed extractor, a device that makes fruit mass from soft fruits, infrared drying equipment, and vacuum packing machines. In addition, a cooler allows members to store fruits and vegetables at low cost and sell them during the off-season, when demand is up.
In addition to co-op members, local farmers who participated in the earlier IOCC Foundation-funded solar dryer project can also have their produce dried here, and they can sell their fresh fruit and vegetables to the co-op in bulk, providing another income source.
In all, this new facility is giving local Georgian farmers new ways forward as they strengthen their livelihoods, families, and community.
