Identification of Training Needs of Farmers in Georgia

Bc. Klára Jiráňová

Master's thesis

Abstract:

Since, Georgia is still transitional country, agriculture went through many changes in last decades and the process of transition is conspicuous until now. The main changes in agriculture were: decreased share of GDP, decreased agricultural production, export and import composition, the raise of private farms and reduction of a households plot size. These changes caused specific problems the farmers must face until nowadays. Thus, Ministry of agriculture together with others introduced reforms supporting agricultural cooperatives. Jointing these small farmers to bigger competitive organization seems as a good opportunity and necessary for development of Georgia. As the education and training is one of the principles of cooperatives, the current strategies assume the identification of farmers and members of cooperatives training needs could be one of the possible solutions to develop agricultural cooperatives in Georgia. The research questions were: what were the training needs of the members of newly established cooperatives within the ENPARD programme. This paper attempts to identify, categorise and prioritise training needs of members of cooperatives established or supported within the ENPARD programme. Training needs were identified using point continuum Likert scale method and Training needs index. This assessment identified training needs of members of wine, herbs and dairy cooperatives. There were interviewed 30 members of seven cooperatives. The results showed, that it would be worthwhile train the members on most of the areas interviewed. The strongest training needs had members of wine cooperatives, then members of dairy cooperatives, then members of herbs cooperatives. Regarding the common areas for all cooperatives, the members felt high training needs in all areas concerning women and youth empowerment and operation of coop and concerning marketing and management were in high training need. The discussion revealed that there are some similar features with other studies conducted in past Imereti region. The outcomes suggested the trainings of the organizations participated in ENPARD programme should continue, because members of cooperatives still feel enormous gaps in their needs.

Keywords

agri-cooperatives, advisory services, training needs, training needs assessment, farmers, cooperatives, Georgia, Imereti, ENPARD

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 27. 4. 2017

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: Ing. Jana Mazancová, Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences

Master programme / field:
Tropical Agriculture / Sustainable Rural Development in the Tropics and Subtropics