The story of "Chibati" is connected with revival of old traditions. In old times, there were up to 90 ha tea plantations in village Chibati, that the population was looking after. The cooperative managed to restore the tradition. From soviet style cooperative "Chibati" moved to modern, business-oriented cooperative, which works on restoring-rehabilitation the damaged tea plantations. Local population is actively involved in tea production.
Members of "Chibati" started to rehabilitate tea plantations within the project of reviving traditional fields of agriculture in municipalities. Then they registered a cooperative. In 2014, the cooperative participated in ENPARD program to build a tea processing factory, rehabilitate plantations and recultivate tea cultures. After winning the program, "Chibati received tea processing lines for the factory building, that they took from municipality.
Currently, the cooperative owns 2,5 ha plantations and plans to recultivate more territories, as the capacity of factory allows them to process 100 tones of raw materials during a season.
The cooperative members think, that tea has prospects in the region, because it's a strong culture: "We have a good opportunity to rehabilitate the plantations and help the locals by reducint their costs, after they get involved in tea processing and production".
Plans for the nrear future is exportint the raw tea. The cooperative already reached success to export tea production in China. Its msmbers plan to increase production every year up to 20-25 tones and start producing tea bags, for which they need additional support. This way they'll reach increase in sales and receive better results.
Cooperatives
Cooperatives