FAO/GIEWS - Foodcrops & Shortages 06/99 - GEORGIA* (25 May)
The current production forecast is no better than the poor 800 000 tonnes last year. Winter grains, mainly wheat and barley, benefited from mostly satisfactory conditions but official reports indicate that the area sown to winter wheat has declined further by 18 000 hectares to 107 000 hectares. Even with average yields, the 1999 wheat harvest is officially forecast at about 150 000 tonnes, compared to 160 000 in 1998. However, official estimates tend to underestimate actual output. At the same time, yields are likely to remain low due to structural problems such as shortage of credit, inadequate marketing and processing facilities and poor irrigation and drainage systems. Market demand for foodstuffs and the availability of funds for inputs has been adversely affected by the depreciation of the lari, the growing budget deficit and the disruption of trade with the Russian Federation. As a result, humanitarian assistance to vulnerable groups will also remain necessary in 1999/2000.
Food aid deliveries of cereals in the 1998/99 marketing year amounted to some 90 000 tonnes, mainly wheat. The balance of the cereal import requirement is expected to be imported commercially. Indications are that registered imports of wheat and flour have fallen sharply after the 20 percent VAT on flour imports was also extended to wheat. Nevertheless, the overall food supply situation is satisfactory but in the more difficult economic climate in the wake of the Russian financial crisis, the vulnerable populations will continue to need assistance.
WFP has planned to provide 18 000 tonnes of food aid to 180 000 vulnerable people and targeted food-for-work schemes over a one-year period commencing in July 1999 with a new phase of the protracted relief and recovery operation. The emphasis in the new phase is to increase the number of food- for-work beneficiaries to assist vulnerable people to meet their food needs under the current conditions of decreasing purchasing power.
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