Small Business Services Help Launch Raspberry Farm
Musician Beglar Mikeladze didn’t set out to build a business when he planted his first raspberry plants in Adlia, Georgia. “At first I started to grow raspberries just to meet some family needs. . . my wife was famous in our neighborhood for her stewed raspberries and raspberry jams. Then we decided to enlarge our raspberry plantation and the harvest was so rich that that we had to take raspberries to the market in Batumi. We were pleasantly surprised at how quickly the whole stock sold out, and this is where the idea to grow raspberries on a larger scale came to mind.”
To achieve his new goal, Mikeladze approached Batumi Consulting, a business service organization supported by the USAID-funded SME Support project, to transform “just an idea” into a comprehensive business plan. According to the proposal developed by Batumi Consulting, the raspberry planting stock in Mikeladze’s farm could increase dramatically by optimizing existing raspberry plants and using organic fertilizers to increase harvest volume. To obtain the latter, Beglar built a biogas facility with a grant from the World Bank’s Agricultural Research, Extension and Training Project, which provides his raspberry farm with pathogen-free, nitrogen-enriched fertilizer. The three cows and two calves he owned were sufficient to produce the required amount of organic fertilizer for his farming needs.
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| Adjara’s warm and humid subtropical climate enables local raspberry farmers, like Beglar Mikeladze, to achieve robust harvests twice a year. |
Traditionally, raspberries are a mid-summer crop. With new technology and plants and improved transportation, however, they can now be harvested twice a year at Mikeladze’s farm. In addition, the proposal recommended focusing on the long-term prospects offered by commercial processing, suggesting quick-freezing the raspberries or marketing them as dried fruit.
“It is still a serious problem to find agricultural products that are competitive to citrus and tea in western Georgia,” Mikeladze notes. “Though the problem with them [citrus and tea] is that both lost their markets after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Hence, cultivation of raspberries might be quite an interesting prospect. Raspberries are an important commercial fruit crop widely grown in all temperate regions of the world. And I decided I should try my hand at growing raspberries in Adjara.”
Adjara has extremely favorable conditions for growing raspberries. It benefits from a warm and humid subtropical climate, making it possible for local farmers to achieve robust harvests twice a year: in June-July and September-October. Mikeladze decided to plant 1,050 square meters of land with raspberries and produced 2 tons of berries last year. This year, he expects his harvest to double due to the homemade, organic fertilizer he’s using—and plans to purchase additional cows to meet the demand generated by increasing land under production.
Until now, Mikeladze’s family has managed to manage their farm by hiring outside labor only during the harvest season. As he expands his plantation and introduces new technology, Mikeladze plans to employ 21 people over a longer period of time. According to Melor Mshvidobadze, Batumi Consulting’s agribusiness consultant, “It is really amazing that more and more local farmers are tempted to follow Mikeladze’s example.” Step by step, the farmer is implementing many of the agricultural innovations offered by Batumi Consulting to achieve record harvest figures for Georgia—about 12-14 tons per 0.5 hectare.
“Raspberries have drastically increased my income to an average of GEL 10,000 this year,” says Mikeladze. “Next year I plan to double my income through the introduction of new technology. With a partner like Batumi Consulting, any businessman can fearlessly venture into a new business knowing that their risks have been accurately calculated and minimized, even in agriculture.”
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