The degradation of agriculture in Georgia is primarily due to the extremely low productivity level. Compared with the Soviet period it has decreased seven-fold. The experience of capitalism has still not yielded positive results for the economy of Georgia it seems.
The authorities and experts try to excuse the low productivity by lack of machinery and lack of financing from the centre (the centre is not Moscow anymore, it is Tbilisi), the bad quality of roads, stupid agriculturists…
Why is labour capacity in the villages of Azerbaijan and Armenia higher than in Georgia? The agriculture of these countries, which have similar histories, is developed better than in Georgia with its liberal reforms, the Act on Economic Freedom, i.e. constitutional limitation of the budget deficit, low tax rates, a Singaporean principle of bureaucratic administration, absence of corruption, and non-interference of the state in private business.
Under pressure from the opposition, the Georgian authorities had to break their own principles and give $70 million for necessities of agriculture. However, no improvement took place. What is the reason for this tragedy? The reason is clear, even though it is not politically correct.
Recently I caught a cab in Tbilisi and fell into conversation with the driver. He was a young man near thirty, full of strength and health. Cursing the authorities, he complained that he lived in the Garanabsk region of Kakheti, he had a large parcel of land, but to feed his family he had to plaster houses, buy a car and be a taxi driver.
- What about land? Kekhetia is a place where you can harvest several times in a year, I asked.
- To hire a worker to plough land and take care about it is very expensive, the driver answered.
- Then work yourself, make a farm and harvest, I suggested.
And then something unexpected happened. A young man looked at me as if I said something obscene, and said: “I won’t dig into the soil! It is dirty.”
I must say he wore very good clothes and his car was Mercedes. He is ready to mortgage father’s house, working a taxi-driver, but he doesn’t want to “dig into the soil.”
The reason for degradation of Georgian agriculture hides in social and mental peculiarities of the society. Unless these peculiarities will maintain, neither beneficial credits nor thousands of equipment items can help. Moreover, when the state provides the policy of supporting people, who work lazy and don’t want to live in conditions of competition, it preserves the problem, which leads to destroying processes.
Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively to VK.
