II Annual Berry and Fruit Festival will take place in Issyk-Kul Region on 9th of August

II Annual Berry and Fruit Festival will take place in Issyk-Kul Region on 9th of August

published: 23 July 2014

The II Annual Berry and Fruit Festival Karagat Fest will take place on August 9, 2014 in Kyzyl-Suu village of Djety-Oguz District of the Issyk-Kul region. The Public Foundation Avep in terms of Karagat+ Project, sponsored by Kumtor Gold Company, organizes the festival for a second time.

Fairs of fruits and berries, technical equipment, home processed products are expected to take place during the Fest. Guests will also be able to see the “berries parade”, take part in various workshops, get advice from experts on establishment of nursery gardens, greenhouses and storages, and about implementation of the drip irrigation system, which would allow farmers to significantly reduce water and energy consumption. Spe-cialists will also introduce use of modern fertilizers and ways of labor costs optimization to all interested guests. To remind, during the First Festival participants signed agreements on delivery of more than 50 tons of berries from Issyk-Kul region and around 1,500 people attended information exhibition stands.

Main goals of the festival:


• Promotion and popularization of berries and fruits of the Issyk-Kul region;
• Establishing common grounds to create partnership relations among farmers, consumers and pro-cessing companies and individuals;
• Promotion of nursery gardens, green-houses and modern storage facilities;
• Promotion of drip irrigation systems;
• Promotion of short-term courses on cultivating black current and other berries;
• Raising economic well-being of local population via production of organic berries and fruits;
• Development of tourist potential of the south shore of the Issyk-kul Lake;
• Familiarization with tourist capacity and land marks of the south shore of the Issyk-Kul Lake.

“Karagat Fest – is unique event that gives the opportunity to farmers to establish useful partnership contacts to sell their products. Not only farmer groups will take part in the festival but also other representatives of this business, processing companies and individuals, association of nursery gardens and storages, representa-tives of the international agencies” – emphasized Maksat Abdykaparov, director of Avep Public Foundation.
“We are happy that we can bring our contribution to the sustainable development of the Issyk-Kul region. I hope that the Festival will help people of the region to establish distribution channels of their products, re-ceive lots of useful information, and as a result it will be an additional impulse for the development of the local economy” – noted Douglas Grier, Sustainable Development Director at Kumtor Gold Company.

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For reference:
The AVEP Public Fund is a Central Asian non-government and non-political organization working with a wide range of international organizations engaged in the private and public sectors for effectively contrib-uting to sustainable and innovative development of rural areas in the Kyrgyz Republic.

Karagat+ is a three-year project implemented by AVEP with the financial support of Kumtor Operating Company. The project is designed to contribute to the development of local communities and expand the potential of the berry and fruit market. Special attention is given by the project to teaching farmers the basics of marketing to enable them to access markets and increase their revenues from the sales of berries they have produced.