Gia Kordzaze is a farm service center (FSC) that distributes agricultural inputs and provides agronomy consultations and other services to over 12,000 small- and medium-scale farmers in the Gardabani district of the Republic of Georgia.

The FSC exists to boost local crops and incomes. Developing relationships with its clients and farmers is crucial to its success, yet until recently, the FSC had no customer database.

Enter Vance Phillips, county council president of Sussex County, Delaware, who volunteered with CNFA’s United States Agency of International Development (USAID)-funded Farmer-to-Farmer program to train members of the Gia Kordzaze staff.

Phillips works for one of the largest agriculture-producing counties in the Eastern United States and owns his own family farm operation which includes watermelons, corn, soybeans, vegetables and 70,000 chickens.

Phillips, in Georgia from late May to early June, instructed staff members of the FSC in soil fertility improvement, crop and pest management and application of plant protection products, as well as service improvement and customer relations, steps expected to increase sales, profits, number of clients and customer loyalty.

For instance, on his first day with Gia Kordzaze, Phillips encouraged the staff to categorize dealers and farmers into a three-tier system—Gold, Silver and Bronze—emphasizing quality of clients by allowing customers to improve their class through education and reward-based initiatives.

Phillips also worked with staff in the field, demonstrating new technologies, such as a soil probe for testing soil quality, through hands-on demonstrations.

He added that the farmers have a tremendous will to succeed. Over the course of Phillips’ two week visit, the FSC had already made a lot of progress.

Although interpersonal relationships had previously been discouraged, Gia Kordzaze added and developed a customer database with Phillips’ help.

“They didn’t even know their best customer’s last name,” Phillips said. “By the end of my visit, the service center was proficiently entering customers into a newly created database, complete with phone numbers, addresses, farm size and even their birthdays.”

The FSC decided to add birthdays to the database as a result of a workshop conducted by Phillips. By recognizing customers on that day, people would find it a welcomed sign of the business’ interest in them, Gia Kordzaze staff concluded, according to Phillips.

“It was a very good indication to me that these folks want to succeed and are willing to think outside of the restrictive box they have been in for generations,” Phillips said. “I have great hope for the people of Georgia.”

For more information on Vance Phillips’ personal and professional experiences in the Republic of Georgia, visit his travel log at www.vancephillips.net/.

Please visit www.cnfa.org/farmer-to-farmer for a list of available opportunities and to find out how you can become a Farmer-to-Farmer volunteer.