Twenty Georgian milk farm owners and specialists studied modern milk production technologies during a ten-day seminar in Ukraine. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) -- through the second phase of the Improving Food Safety in Georgia's Dairy Sector project -- provided the funding that sent Georgian farmers to state-of-the-art Ukrainian farms to obtain up-to-date information on the milk sector.

The seminar included two educational modules: “Reproduction and Animal Health” and “Feeding and Forages.” At the training participants discussed topical issues for the Georgian dairy industry including: forage technologies, the feeding of different groups of animals, optimizing reproduction of the herd, the care of young cows, increasing animal safety, and others.

During the training course, Georgian farmers acquired theoretical knowledge from dairy husbandry experts and consultants from the Association of Milk Producers (AMP) of Ukraine.  They visited milk farms in different regions of Ukraine as well, including: Vinnitsa, Odessa, Kherson, Dnepropetrovsk, Poltava, and Zhitomir. All of these farms differ by their sizes of herd, types of keeping, milk production technologies, organizational structures, as well as the volume of their investments.

All participants praised the seminar’s level of organization and the quality of the content.  They greatly appreciated the opportunity consult with specialists face-to-face.

Mr. Tamaz Banetishvili, the owner of Geo Farm, said that from the first day of the training in Ukraine the experts helped him to correct the ration of milking cows for his farm in Georgia. This resulted in a daily increased milk yield of 150 litres from his 30-cow herd. “I plan to expand the farm. The knowledge I acquired and the visits to the Ukrainian farms helped me to create a new vision and strategy for my future modern farm,” Banetishvili said.

It is important to mention that Georgian farmers can now interact with experts, get access to educational materials, and find other useful information on the newly created website http://georgiandairy.org/ka.

The second phase of the educational seminar is planned for August 2016 and it will contain two modules: “Keeping, Milking, and Young Stock Breeding,” and “Farm Management and Dairy Farm Economics.”