Georgia’s Ministry of Agriculture has started work on a National Plant Genetic Bank in the village of Jighaura, on the campus of the Scientific-Research Center of Agriculture. The complex is meant to conserve the country’s agro-biodiversity: unique grape varieties, wheat lines, and fruit trees that underpin Georgian farming.
Construction at the research campus
The new facility is planned as a purpose-built center rather than a simple warehouse. It will sit beside laboratories and collections already based at Jighaura, linking conservation vaults to ongoing research. Published designs show laboratory wings and greenhouse structures around a landscaped site.
The ministry says the bank will meet international standards for gene-bank work. That includes medium-term and long-term storage, conservation protocols, and systematic study of plant genetic resources of both Georgian and global importance.
Climate pressure and crop heritage
Georgia holds a dense inheritance of landraces and traditional cultivars, especially in grapes, wheat, and orchard fruit. Those stocks are vulnerable to heat, drought, pests, and the loss of local farming knowledge. The gene bank is framed as a hedge against climate stress and wider threats to food supply: a place to keep seed and living material viable when fields and orchards come under pressure.
Researchers will be able to conserve material, document it, and make it available for breeding and scientific exchange. The project is also presented as a way for Georgia to sit more firmly in international plant-science networks that already share and compare genetic stocks.
Food security and scientific standing
Once operational, the bank is expected to strengthen the country’s food security by keeping a controlled reserve of the crops Georgia depends on. It should also raise the scientific profile of Georgian collections abroad, giving visiting researchers and partner institutes a dedicated home for work that has until now been split across older facilities.
A launch date has not been announced. Construction is under way on the Jighaura site.
