This month marks five years since I retired from my 17 year engagement as a horticultural crop consultant for foreign aid programs funded by USAID. As I said in an earlier post, although I provided assistance to a number of programs as diverse as irrigation mangement of Eastern European fruit crops to honey production and marketing in sub-Saharan East Africa, early on my specialty became blueberry production and enterprise development. The opportunity for this "native-North American," high value, labor intensive crop was timely for transitioning economies in parts of the world that could offer the climates, moisture, and soils required. Blueberry markets for this healthy and culturally adaptable fruit were dramatically expanding in response to a growing global demand.
I brought a first trial planting of 50 highbush blueberries on a second consultancy to the Republic of Georgia in 2003, which lead to a three year mission to establish a Georgian Blueberry Production Industry. At the outset I told my berry stakeholders that blueberry enterprise developement would necessarily be a long term development project--the major reason being the slow growing nature of the highbush blueberry plant. Over the next 15 years USAID funded four follow-on missions in Georgia to strengthen and expand our efforts. The best sites proved to be the western regions near the Balck Sea where tea had formerly been grown by the USSR on large industrial state farms We learned that northren tea varieties and blueberries share the same site requirements for soil, moisture, and climate
A young fruit horticulture graduate student at the University of Tblisi, whom I met on my first trip to Georgia in 2003, was hired as my colleague and interpreter. Today, 20 years later, Dr. Zviad Bobokashvili is a lead rsearcher and consultant for the Georgian Horticultural Research Institute with responsiblity for apple, cherry, and blueberry crop research and outreach. We remain close friends. In January, as a part of his annual New Year's greeting, I received the follwing news from Zviad:
I brought a first trial planting of 50 highbush blueberries on a second consultancy to the Republic of Georgia in 2003, which lead to a three year mission to establish a Georgian Blueberry Production Industry. At the outset I told my berry stakeholders that blueberry enterprise developement would necessarily be a long term development project--the major reason being the slow growing nature of the highbush blueberry plant. Over the next 15 years USAID funded four follow-on missions in Georgia to strengthen and expand our efforts. The best sites proved to be the western regions near the Balck Sea where tea had formerly been grown by the USSR on large industrial state farms We learned that northren tea varieties and blueberries share the same site requirements for soil, moisture, and climate
A young fruit horticulture graduate student at the University of Tblisi, whom I met on my first trip to Georgia in 2003, was hired as my colleague and interpreter. Today, 20 years later, Dr. Zviad Bobokashvili is a lead rsearcher and consultant for the Georgian Horticultural Research Institute with responsiblity for apple, cherry, and blueberry crop research and outreach. We remain close friends. In January, as a part of his annual New Year's greeting, I received the follwing news from Zviad:
"Regarding results from our efforts: I can report that Blueberry acreage in Georgia has grown to 2,000 hectares (nearly 5,000 acres) this year, with another 400 ha expected to be planted in the upcoming year 2023. Georgian export of blueberries was valued at almost $5,000,000 USD for 2022. So, the dream which our USAID AgVantage team began in 2003, with your initiatives and leadership, is being realized."
Other former Georgian colleagues have informed me that blueberries now challenge wine as the major Georgian agricultural export, and that nearly 500 Geogian farm families are benefiting.
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