On December 15, we signed a grant agreement with the 

 in Armenia at the 

. Gayane Gabrielyan, the Deputy Minister of the Environment, Masanori Fukushima, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Armenia, and our founder Andre Gumuchdjian, were present at the signing ceremony of the contract.

At the beginning of this year, the Embassy of Japan announced the Human Security “Grassroots” Grant Program (GGP). We are very happy that our project has won the selection process. The purpose of this grant is to build a 500 m2 greenhouse on the grounds of the Benjamin Gumuchdjian Nursery in Gugark, as well as to install an anti-hail net on some parts of the nursery. The total amount of the grant is $ 88.000.

The construction will take place in 2023 and the greenhouse will start its operations in 2024. We will be able to grow an additional 115․000 forest tree seedlings in containers, per year․ This will help us to grow more difficult and rare species as well as plant them earlier in the season. The anti-hail net will be installed on a surface of 6.600 m2 in the nursery, which will protect the young seedlings from hail but also from the intense sun in the summer.