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

Government of Georgia approves the state program "Access to State-Owned Pastures"

The respective program will improve the rational use and accessibility to state-owned pastures in Georgia. The program is implemented by the National Agency for Sustainable Land Management and Land Use Monitoring, through coordination of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of Georgia.

Georgia’s natural grasslands and pastures are about 1.8 million hectares, including about 500 thousand hectares affected by erosion. Pasture ecosystems and vegetation cover are particularly damaged by continuous and extensive grazing of cattle, increasing density and irrational use of pastures, moreover, unsystematic use of pastures leads to the deterioration in the soil cover, as well as irrational use of pastures and destruction of grass cover causes a change in soil structure. 

The new program "Access to State-Owned Pastures" envisages 3219 units of state-owned pastures registered on the territory of Georgia with the total area consisting of 89 905 hectares. The program supports the emergence of legitimate responsibility for pasture maintenance, use and access to pastures, which in turn is one of the main preconditions for quality improvement, livestock development and quantitative and qualitative growth of local products. 

Any natural or legal person, including an agricultural cooperative, as well as a partnership that has selected a pasture for lease agreement, can participate in the program, at the same time, the participants should own a sufficient number of cattle and / or small scale cattle (not less than 1 ha and not more than 1.5 ha for one head of cattle and not less than 0.2 and not more than 0.5 ha for small scale cattle) when submitting the application.

The project envisages the identification and registration of unregistered pasture land plots on the basis of the application submitted by the interested persons to participate in the program. Categories will be determined for agricultural land plots registered without any specified land category .

Under the program, the state-owned pastures will be leased for 3-year. The Lease term will be specified in the auction. The pasture located on state-owned lands defined by the Law of Georgia "on Subsoil’’ will be leased for one year, unless other license terms are provided with the license holder.