BARBALE

[barbaleorganic-blog]

ANOTHER GREAT SPOT TO FIND BARBALE

There are thousands of markets and supermarkets in Georgia, where you can find lots of products with great quality or not like this, but there is only one supermarket in the country where you can find only Georgian production. 

The name of the spot is “Only Georgian” (მხოლოდ ქართული) at 20 Mitskevichi st of Tbilisi. Since there is fast growing awareness of organic products in Georgia, we have decided together to cooperate and add vegetables Barbale corner in the shop.

 You can find in the supermarket  “Only Georgian” (მხოლოდ ქართული) Barbale’s organic potatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage, beetroot, corn flour, honey, Tkemali or honey. All this and much more of hundreds of Georgian companies which are distributing their Georgian DNA products in “Only Georgian”. 

If you live in Georgia, you are probably in love of Georgian tastes and want to support local economy as well.

So, the market is waiting for you every day! #მხოლოდქართული

ADDRESS: 20 Mitskevichi st, Tbilisi

TEL:  [phone]

FACEBOOK PAGE: https://www.facebook.com/mkholodqartuli/

[barbaleorganic-blog]

HOW BARBALE BREAKS THE STEREOTYPES?

In 2015, when we have started founding of Organic farm and had to plan our small business objectives, we couldn’t imagine how difficult that was. First of all we had a just motivation and crazy idea to run farming company same time when we had full time jobs. From the beginning contribution of our friends and international volunteers were not estimated at all. The first time in the history of  village practice we have gathered people from 15 different countries on different times to experience local agriculture and culture with them, to share our daily life and make them part of Georgian culture.

This was the first wonder for many community members surrounding, they were thinking that this was impossible to make visitors work hard and still have them happy and productive, after three years of the experience with volunteers everyone is agreed that volunteering job is the way how you can use free resources and share lots of positive to others.

We are happy that this new perspective have changed the just one point of view of agriculture in our neighborhood.  The stereotype that no one will come and work for free for your farm is broken at least in 10 different families. This is so cool!!!

Second and the most discussable stereotype is the organic way of growing vegetables. Yeah – most of the people from local community first year of our farm were asking just one question – “Are you crazy”?

O, yeah! We are, we were and still we keep it going to work against weeds by hands and don’t use chemicals to kill all of them. Even weeds can be profitable, don’t they?

We are using a lot of man power and spending money to rent sometimes workers against weeds, our production cost is much higher than if we would use chemical herbicides and fertilizers. Two years of watching this crazy work of two crazy people and volunteers, community members have seen that our production was healthier, more expensive and popular. Second year of our farm they didn’t tell anything – Just observe!

Now we have third year and most of them are at least telling us that they are doing same way like Barbale and don’t use chemicals to grow vegetables, this took whole three years of positive effect but it is worth of all. Of course!

No money amount we could collect by big chemical way of agriculture could be better than the motivation of tens families of organic way of agriculture in our surrounding. Our motto is #weproducehealth and we are not going to change the way even if this is not profitable.

[barbaleorganic-blog]

What is Barbale?

In 2015 two Georgian and two German friends visited Tusheti. In the beginning of October the weather wasn’t good to pass Atsunta pass and we just get in touch unique Tushetian culture and enjoyed short hikes.

On October 5, from the village Kvavlo we were going down to Dartlo village where we met dog rose bush (Latin: Rosa canina), which was full of ripe fruits. This wild rose and it’s huge potential for health became our inspiration to start organic farming. We were talking about possibilities of Georgian agriculture and plan the business idea.

In December of 2015 in the village Atskuri, Georgia we bought land for agriculture and one of the friends Keti had bought house and we call it Barbale House now. (Gaga is from Atskuri). From the very beginning our goal was to produce healthy products. We have our principals and values, our way to the goal is not easy, but our motivation and friends made it happen.

How can we recognize Barbale?

Before we started practical work, we call our agriculture name: Barbale, which is the name of Goddess of Fertility in Georgian Mythology, this was symbolic connection between agriculture and fertility.  Only name was not enough for us and we create our logo, which has the form of pumpkin, this is the symbol of  abundance.

To choose the colours we had to use practice of the modern branding, the Orange is the symbolic colour of Friendship and the Blue is symbol of Thrust. Those two values are crucial for us.  We have our motto as well: “We Produce Health” 

Today Barbale grows ecologically clean, organic potatoes, corn, beans, different vegetables, pumpkins and more. We are producing herbal teas, we have beehives and producing raw honey. In total we have more than 50 offers for our customers. Including Agritours and workshops organized at our farm.  

Our working principals is connected to volunteerism, already hundreds of volunteers from different countries from all around the world helped us to produce organic products. Thank you very much to all who helped us to have some success in this short time and for the love we have felt from our customers!

Only in 2017 Barbale had guests from 11 different countries. Their aim of the visit mostly was to explore our farming and help us in our daily work. There were some Agri-tours and honey presentations. In total number of visitors was more than 100, they visited us from Georgia, Germany, Estonia, The Netherlands, Sweden, Iceland, Israel, Czech Republic, Mexico, Syria and USA.