Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of Georgia Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of Georgia

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Levan Davitashvili: "Asian Stink Bug is a very important challenge for Georgia"
At the sitting of the Agrarian Issues Committee, the Minister of Environmental Protection and Agriculture, Levan Davitashvili presented the report on the activities carried out in 2017. Levan Davitashvili underlined the measures taken against the Asian Stink Bug and brought forward planned activities, which will be implemented in 2018. As the Minister noted, in 2017, on the basis of experience and large scale measures taken against the invasive pest "2018 state program against the Asian Stink Bug" has been developed and approved.
The aim of the program is to reduce and control the population of the pest, to minimize the loss of agricultural and forest crops and to reduce economic damage. The main principle of the program is joint cooperation and involvement of state and the society.
"With absolute responsibility I state, that Asian Stink Bug is a very important challenge. This is a very big threat to all countries, which suffer invasion from these pests. I suppose speculation about what type of pest is this and what kind of challenge we face and other related suggestions are absolutely groundless. I have stated several times what type of challenge we face with regard of an Asian-brown marmorated stink bug. The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture has provided the information to the population, accordingly, due to the Campaign conducted in 2017,  the residents of west part of Georgia became aware of the degrees of seriousness of this problem.
When I said, that this issue is politicized - I meant, that in many cases, irresponsible statements were made regarding activities taken against the Asian stink bug. This topic should not be the topic of populism.
We shouldn’t sow the seeds of hopelessness in population. No one can state, that any parliamentarian or activist are more concerned about the invasion of the stink bug than the ruling team.
The financing for the Ministry has grown to increase the capacity of the phytosanitary service and to better communicate with the population, for this purpose the government commission has been established.
The population is more concerned and interested to get competent responses from the specialists, than to hear intensive debates from politicians.There were statements about the establishment of emergency headquarters, and some politicians claim that population can’t fight against the stink bug on their own.  We need to be responsible for our statements and not hurt the residents even more; I mean that through this kind of communication we are increasing hopelessness in population, stating that  Asian stink bug is undefetead. On the contrary, we should encourage the population and give them hope.
On March 8-9, an international conference will be held in Georgia, where all leading experts from the US and representatives of the Phytosanitary Service of all neighboring countries will participate. The goal of the conference is to combat the pest by joint efforts and coordination in the region. Georgia has a big experience with respect of this problem and this experience should be shared. As for 2017 we did our best, but we lacked this experience, and perhaps in the end of 2018 there will be some issues that will be improved in 2019. This is a unique experience that we gained in the fight against this dangerous pest. We are always ready to take significant steps, to buy technical equipment and get medical treatment, provide local residents with the information materials and brochures, which are easily readable, we also hold  meetings (Last year we held 4 thousand meetings in different villages of Georgia).
This year population knows more than in the previous years.  Joint efforts will be more effective. Local residents believe, that due to the properly conducted investigations and control measures, they will achieve a success and reduce the population of the dangerous pest. 
We discuss issues related to Asian Stink bug with the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure on a daily basis.