COMMUNITY-BASED COOPERATION AS AN EFFECTIVE MECHANISM OF THE RECOVERY OF THE HIGLANDS IN GEORGIA

There could be no progress Georgia without strengthening the vitality of rural areas and agriculture. Strength of rural community depends on developing and pursuing sound public policies. In the thirty-year history of Georgia's independence, there have been made numerous attempts to pursue regional policies aimed at improving the well-being of rural people. Time has shown that each strategy or program designed for this purpose has always been unsystematic and fragmented. As a result, we obtained an almost irreversible process of rural exodus in Georgia, especially in the highland border sector. These areas of Georgia require highly specific approaches. Local Georgians closest to the origins of Georgian civilization still keep in their daily lives the customs that have existed continuously for many centuries (community-based use and enjoyment of land, partnership, community). The goal of the public support programs designed for them is to create conditions that will naturally encourage people to be there on a permanent-type basis. We consider it expedient to create special economic entities in the higher altitude regions of the country, to which the revenues generated from pasture lands and forest funds will accumulate. Within the mentioned economic entities, agricultural production should be developed on a cooperative basis, by organizing a single production cycle within cooperatives (production, processing and marketing of primary products). The owners of these types of economic entities can only be people permanently residing in a certain territory. The revenues from leasing or other agricultural activities can only be spent based on democratic decisions for general purposes to improve the living conditions. Such purposes may include education, healthcare, infrastructure, transport, etc., which will be pre-determined by the Government of Georgia. When specifying the optimal form of local territorial extent of agricultural cooperatives, priority is given to community-based cooperatives. They will be formed within the administrative units, taking into account the factors of production specialization and concentration of the productive forces. Community-based cooperatives contribute to creating conditions for mass community engagement in the cooperative process, where economies of scale can be used and population’s ability and material resources can be capitalized on the ground, which is of particular importance for inclusive (comprehensive) entrepreneurshi