Agriculture in Samegrelo

In Samegrelo, the climatic environment, fertile soils, and short and mild winters create favourable conditions for the cultivation of various agricultural crops. Jean Chardin, who travelled to Samegrelo in XVII century, notes that they grow foxtail millet, panicgrass, rice and barley there.

 

In Samegrelo they mainly grew corps like Colchian emmer, several varieties of panicgrass and foxtail millet, maize, wheat, barley, rye, several varieties of beans, and, also, some technical crops like cotton, flaxes and hemp.

 

Before the introduction and spread of the maize culture (XVII century), a large amount of panicgrass was grown in Samegrelo. The panicgrass gave a lot more harvest than any other crops. People believed that panicgrass mchadi (bread) was the source of energy for them.

 

The archeologic materials of Dikha-Gudzuba, which date back to the II millennium, show that during this period, agriculture was intensively developed in the Colchian Plain. As early as the Hellenic period, the successors of the Colchis Kingdom had close relations with the Greco-Roman world. According to the VI century Greek historian Menander Protector, there were close economic ties between the kingdom of Laz and Svaneti – they sent bread from Colchis and received honey and leather from Svaneti.

 

Today, one of the leading crops, the maize, appeared in Western Georgia in the XVII century. The spread of the maize caused a certain agricultural transition – first of all, it should be noted that the cultivation of the foxtail millet was dramatically reduced.

 

In Georgia, as ethnographic reality confirms, men worked with hoes, but where there was relatively works to be performed, such as nurturing of vegetable gardens and growing different vegetables, it was always a women's job.