The United Nations has designated 2026 as the “International Year of Transhumance and Pastoralists” to highlight the crucial role that these landscapes and communities play in food security, ecosystem conservation, climate resilience, and cultural heritage.
Georgia is a small, mountainous country in the Caucasus with a strong tradition of extensive grazing, particularly for sheep and cattle. Pastoralism remains deeply rooted in rural communities, both economically and culturally. It is estimated that natural pastures cover approximately 1.8 million hectares, or 25% of the country’s territory. These pastures are unevenly distributed according to altitude, topography, and climatic conditions: mountains, subalpine zones, valleys, and plains.
Fert has been active in Georgia since 2011, working alongside the GBDC-AO technical team and the Ertoba farmers’ association. Together, they launched a dairy advisory service and demonstrated that farmers could organize themselves. In the Samtskhe-Javakheti region, where Fert operates, farmers use pastures around the villages in the spring and fall. High-altitude pastures (or alpine pastures) are used mainly in the summer when forage production in village meadows is reduced, particularly due to the summer drought.
In this context, seasonal transhumance remains widely practiced, with herds moving to high-mountain areas from May through September. This mobility allows for the optimal use of natural forage resources and helps limit the purchase of animal feed.
It is particularly essential for smallholder farmers, for whom livestock serves as a source of income, a means of ensuring food security, and a factor in economic resilience.
The experience of Maïa Kochalidze, a transhumant breeder
This is the case for Maïa KOCHALIDZE, a livestock farmer in the village of Gomaro, in the Adigeni district. A former teacher, Maïa chose to devote herself entirely to farming, which allows her to earn a better income. Today, she owns a herd of 30 animals, including 13 dairy cows, 5 dry cows, 11 heifers, and 1 bull.
Like 90% of the families in her village, Maïa practices seasonal transhumance.
“At the end of May, we head up to the mountains with the herd of dairy cows and dry cows (the calves are raised separately). Sometimes, if the weather is bad, we wait until mid-June. The whole family helps me with the trek up, but after that, I’m on my own in the mountains for four months. The rest of the family goes back down to the village to take care of the house, the farm, and to harvest fodder for the winter. Our mountain pasture is 18 kilometers from the village, and the road is in very poor condition. (…) I’ve been doing this for 20 years; and even as a child, I used to go there with my family. Going up to the mountain pasture is essential because we don’t have enough grazing land in the village to feed our livestock. (…) Up there, there are rocky pastures and meadows, and the food is abundant and of very high quality.”
Life in the Alpine pastures
A typical day in Maïa’s life:
“I start the day by milking the cows in the morning, then I let the herd out to pasture. I milk by hand because no collection truck can make it up here due to the road conditions, and it’s impossible to deliver the milk to the village every day. So, I process the milk right here on the spot after each milking: I make Imeruli (a brined cheese produced throughout the country) with whole milk and also Chechili (a traditional cheese made from stretched and braided curds), for which I skim the milk – which allows me to produce butter and cream as well.
The rest of the day, I clean the barn, do housework, cook, have coffee with the neighbors, and rest a bit. In the evening, the cows return from pasture and I start the second milking. With so many cows, it’s hard to get bored!
On-site, I have a generator for power and access to water in the yard: life in the mountains is no problem for me! The hardest part for me is the loneliness. Because of the poor condition of the roads, my family rarely visits me in the mountains.”
Regarding the sale of the cheeses, Maïa explains: “Most often, a retailer comes directly to the farm to buy our cheeses. But I think their quality deteriorates during transport.”
Indeed, the 18 km to the village takes nearly 2 hours by vehicle, plus another 40 minutes to reach Akhaltsikhe, the regional capital.
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Traditionally, Georgian breeders have used pastures based on informal usage rights inherited from ancestral practices or from the Soviet system, where the management of grazing lands was planned and centralized. After independence in 1991, while arable land was privatized, the vast majority of pastures—about 70 to 75% today—remained state-owned.
The customary rights of local communities were not formally recognized in the new legal framework. This has led to the breakdown of transhumance systems, the loss of communal infrastructure (pastoral roads, summer pasture buildings, watering holes), and uncertainty regarding access to resources. In many cases, de facto users have no legal title, which limits their land security and their ability to invest in sustainable management.
In Maïa’s case: “All the mountain pastures we use belong to the state. (…) To date, there is no specific legislation governing the use of mountain pasture land. There has never been a conflict among users in our mountain area; on the contrary, we help each other as much as possible and support the farmers. (…)
It is essential to maintain this practice, because raising livestock in our small villages without access to alpine pastures is practically impossible. The main difficulty remains the condition of the roads, which deteriorates every year. Without government assistance, it is impossible for us to address this on our own.”
Today, the legal framework remains fragmented, incomplete, and sometimes ill-suited to the reality of pastoral practices. Only a minority of grazed areas are covered by formal lease agreements. The majority are used under unwritten local arrangements, with little regulation or planning.
Since 2021, a government program has aimed to formalize access to public pastures through three-year leases, via auction or direct allocation. To be eligible, breeders must prove they own a minimum number of livestock (cattle or small ruminants), according to criteria set by the authorities. However, this system has been criticized for several reasons: it disadvantages small-scale local breeders, who are often unable to meet the criteria or compete financially with better-capitalized operators; it does not systematically take traditional usage rights into account. Finally, mechanisms for monitoring, oversight, sustainable management requirements, or penalties for misuse remain weak or are applied very unevenly.
Pastoralism: A Practice with Multiple Implications
Pastoralism and seasonal transhumance play a major economic role in Georgian livestock farming. As Maïa puts it:
“As long as I’m a dairy farmer, I’ll go up to the mountain pastures every summer. Otherwise, it’s impossible under our circumstances. The mountain pastures are a tradition, a way of life, and my family’s main source of income. I’m proud that, through my work, I can make cheese that my customers enjoy and for which they thank me, and that I can provide for my family.”
But this practice now faces numerous challenges. From an environmental perspective, it is affected by soil erosion, loss of vegetation, localized overgrazing, or, conversely, undergrazing in depopulated areas. These phenomena are exacerbated by climate change (more frequent droughts, late frosts, and harsh winters). Legally, land policy reform is necessary, particularly to recognize customary rights and establish a framework for the sustainable management of pastoral resources.
