Georgian pro-government businessman’s farm used banned chicken manure as cattle feed

Kvareli Baga, Georgia’s largest raw milk farm owned by pro-government businessman Lasha Papashvili, fed its cows chicken manure, a practice banned in the European Union, an investigation by Radio Liberty uncovered.

The milk produced by Kvareli Baga is purchased by major dairy companies, including Sante, Soplis Nobati, Agrohab, and Milk Laboratory, a subsidiary of Kvareli Baga. This is not the first time concerns have arisen about the farm’s milk quality.

In the fall of 2018, Sante, one of Kvareli Baga’s largest clients, reportedly detected antibiotics in the milk it received and returned the shipments.

Court documents revealed that Kvareli Baga had been purchasing large quantities of chicken manure from the poultry company Chirina (Biu-Biu). Over the course of a year, the farm acquired approximately 2,700 tons of raw, unprocessed chicken manure. However, a year after this deal, Kvareli Baga raised concerns, claiming that the product it bought from Chirina was responsible for the deaths of its cattle, leading to a loss of 1.65 million GEL.

In response, Chirina denied liability, claiming that it had sold chicken manure as fertilizer, not as animal feed. The dispute led to a lawsuit, with Kvareli Baga suing Chirina in 2020. The court ruled in favor of Kvareli Baga, ordering Chirina to pay 4.7 million GEL.

In his comments and interviews last year, Papashvili praised the government, claiming “It is thanks to the Georgian Dream that we have peace, the economy is developing… It is leading the country to Europe, doesn’t anyone think so? Bidzina Ivanishvili [the founder and honorary chair of the ruling Georgian Dream party]has already gone down in history”.