This post is written by Jenna Jadin, Ph.D., Adaptation Specialist, Bureau for Resilience and Food Security, USAID.

When the USSR collapsed in 1991, parts of Georgia’s agrifood system collapsed too. Not overnight, but over the next decade, the state-run infrastructure that had existed to help farmers collect and get their food to market was dismantled, left to decay or looted. This included, especially, cold storage facilities. Without these, farmers turned to storing fruits and vegetables in old warehouses or cellars that did not have the proper temperature controls. The result? Post-harvest losses of food skyrocketed to 35 percent.  This was significant given that Georgia, along with all of the post-Soviet republics, was struggling with substantial food insecurity.

It also posed a problem as the country tried to adapt to a warming climate. As summer temperatures warmed even more, inefficient cold storage meant that even more food would go to waste more quickly. Georgia needed tools to adapt.

Acknowledging this need to rapidly help Georgia reduce post-harvest losses, in 2002, USAID started implementing one of its first agricultural support projects in Georgia — aimed at addressing this lack of cold storage. Between 2002 and 2018, USAID, in part with Feed the Future funding, supported the building of 19 cold storage facilities, resulting in almost 15,000 cubic meters of new cold storage space. USAID also benefited from the technical expertise of the Global Cold Chain Alliance, the leading U.S. cold storage trade association, and MASHAV, Israel’s organization for international development cooperation. 

These partnerships allowed USAID to strengthen cold storage operators’ management skills and technical capacity, support the establishment of their supplier network, and promote increased quality through the introduction of recognized and accepted grades and standards. 

While these cold store investments were originally seen as a tool to fight food insecurity, they are increasingly seen as a tool for climate change adaptation. Georgia, like the rest of the world, is increasingly feeling the impacts of climate change. Georgia is classified by the World Bank and the UN Development Programme as “highly vulnerable” to climate change, especially in terms of its agriculture, forestry, tourism, health and cultural heritage. Agriculture, which employs one-fifth of the country, is a sector that is always highly sensitive to climate change.

Climate science predicts that Georgia’s agricultural production will be challenged by increasing pests and disease, a lack of water due to decreased snowmelt and evaporation, shifts in production zones (which requires movement or retraining of farmers), and crop losses during extreme weather events. This means that in Georgia, like everywhere, farmers are going to have to find ways to produce more with less and help ensure that what is produced is not wasted.

Cold Storage: A Solution for Increasing Food Security

Cold storage is, and always has been, one of those solutions for doing “more with less,” and while it was once touted as an agricultural development tool, it is now an essential tool for adapting to climate change as well. Realizing this, both USAID and the Government of Georgia are increasing their investments in cold storage. Between 2016 and 2021, 80 new cold stores were created, with a total investment of 37.3 million USD from USAID combined with 14.7 million USD in grants from the Government of Georgia. In addition, the government subsidized interest rates on loans for cold store operators, at a value of GEL 11.7 million (4.3 million USD).

Since 2018, USAID has supported 42 cold storage operators and consolidation centers, committing a total of 2,846,570 USD in grant funds and leveraging 7,297,690 USD of grantee contributions. In the past year, grant recipients include 28 cold storage operators who store mainly stone fruits, apples and pear for local farmers, and 14 cold storage operators who preserve berry crops from their own harvests as well as berries purchased from small-scale farmers. The new cold stores that have been built or improved since 2018 have an estimated total storage volume of around 48,000 cubic meters — which is a LOT of fruit. And the results have been impressive: for some crops, post-harvest losses have decreased to about 8 percent.

Modern cold storage facilities are also key for reaching high-value export markets. For example, blueberries rely heavily on cold storage to comply with international food safety standards. Between 2018 and 2022, Georgia’s blueberry exports increased from 115 to 1,400 tons per year, with a consequent increase in the total export value from 445,473 USD to 8,200,000 USD over the same period. Between reduced product loss and increased export opportunities, farmers’ incomes have increased by 50-80 percent!

Aside from the cold store facilities themselves, USAID also recently provided technical assistance to 52 additional cold storage operators and consolidation centers and funded an Agricultural Waste Management Study. This study found that there is a huge opportunity to use organic waste from agriculture as compost, thereby rehabilitating Georgia’s soils, as well as lowering national greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector. From this study, a waste management plan was developed for a local company operating a walnut orchard and a walnut processing enterprise that now plans to process and produce compost using walnut husks and shells as well as organic fruit and vegetable waste from neighboring farmers. 

This work in Georgia is just one example of how USAID has been helping international partners adapt to climate change. Now, under the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE), the U.S. government’s new international climate adaptation initiative, USAID and 18 other U.S. government agencies are increasing our work on adaptation to climate change. This includes more work to expand cold storage and implement other activities that improve global diets, agricultural incomes and farming practices. And what works in Georgia will be scaled to other places to help our partners be better prepared for an uncertain future.