It is not just migration and the mammoth task of aligning with the EU legislation that Albania’s agricultural sector has to cope with: According to Agriculture Minister Frida Krifca, climate change is the biggest challenge.
Albania opened negotiations with the European Union in July 2022 and is now bringing all domestic laws and regulations in line with the EU’s.
But in an exclusive interview with EURACTIV, Krifca said: “The main challenge we are facing is climate change, which is affecting our territory and is changing our policies to support production, our land usage, irrigation, and protection from floods.”
According to IMF data, Albania will see a temperature increase of up to 2.2 degrees centigrade by 2050, along with an increased frequency of extremely high temperatures.
In addition, while precipitation is expected to decrease by up to 4.3%, the frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall would increase, posing more flooding risks, which already plague the country every autumn and winter.
“All of these challenges require us to put an extra effort into facing the new agricultural phase Albania has entered.”
As a result, the ministry has invested 1.16 billion lek (€11.2 million), a 2.5 increase on past investments, in irrigation to help the country’s farmers with their crops.
There are also plans underway with the World Bank to build the Digital Platform for Climate Intelligent Agriculture’, which will “gather information about soil type, hydro-meteorological data, agricultural practices including the use of fertilisers, pesticides, and irrigation, and aims to guide farmers to more sustainable agricultural practices”.
But Albania faces another challenge in its agriculture sector, contributing 18.63% to the GDP.
The country has lost over 1.4 million citizens in the last 30 years, with up to 83% of youth wanting to study, work and live abroad. But many in rural areas are also keen to move to urban centres, hampering the farming sector, which is yet to reach its full potential.
Krifca said that internal and external migration is an issue plaguing agriculture all over Europe but that measures are being implemented to manage the situation locally.
One is a scheme where young people studying agriculture receive pay equal to the minimum wage (40,000 lek a month/ €400) for the course duration. As one of the poorest countries in Europe, its GDP per capita reached only 32% of the EU average in 2021, according to Eurostat, leading many to seek better salaries abroad.
“But I believe we should go beyond that,” said Krifca, who added that EU funds such as IPARD see young people prioritised in developing their agricultural business ideas.
Tourism meets agriculture
Krifca nodded at the agritourism sector as a way to engage young people in agriculture.
“Enormous effort has been made in funding, investing and facilitating in agritourist structures, which we believe is the main instrument to increase employment and the income of youngsters in rural areas,” she said, adding that in 2017 there were just 10 certified agritourism sites, compared to almost 300 today.
Albania is undergoing a tourism boom, with visitor numbers up 60% in 2022 and expected to surpass 10 million by the end of the year. Agritourism is a central part of this as the country seeks to attract visitors through its scenery, diverse nature, and cultural, agricultural, and culinary traditions still preserved in many rural areas.
“I can guarantee you that this policy has reduced the impact of migration and has shown a successful way for our youth to invest and work in Albania,” Krifca said.
Dangling carrots
For some farmers in Albania, the EU’s technologically-driven policies seem many miles away, but Krifca said progress is coming step by step.
“We have a small and fragmented agrarian structure that makes it difficult to apply new technologies that we find in other countries, therefore the national scheme of support in agriculture had as its objective the promotion of cooperation between farmers, which because of the reminiscence of the history of our country, remains difficult to apply.”
For nearly 50 years, Albania was under totalitarian communist rule where farmers worked with the cooperative model that ultimately failed and saw vast swathes of the population plunged into starvation.
At a national level, the ministry has pushed for schemes where farmers grow separately but sell together to gently reintroduce the concept of working together.
But many farmers are hesitant to register with the state. The government has therefore offered access to funding in return for registration, and as of 2023, there are more than 90,000 farmers registered with a VAT number, an increase of 14% from last year.
Funding up for grabs includes the National Support Scheme, which has subsidised farmers’ expenditure and reduced cultivation costs for 39,000 hectares of wheat, 22,000 hectares of corn, and 23,000 hectares of fodder in 2022 alone.
It also supported the revival of the livestock sector to 850,000 livestock heads and helped 308,000 beehives and some 1000 hectares of greenhouses.
For the 2023 scheme, over 68,000 applications have been received so far, while in 2022, 48,7000 farmers benefitted from reduced fuel prices, feed, and services related to livestock, as well as lowered costs of being certified as organic.
These applications were made online, encouraging farmers to embrace digitalisation.
“So the process of formalising farmers is moving in the right direction, showing that agriculture is another field that must necessarily rely on digitisation and the transmission of knowledge,” Krifca said.
Albanian farmers can now use a ministry-launched app, which gives real-time information on markets, food analysis, active support schemes, financing, veterinary care, legislation in force, and even land to rent. In four months, more than 2.1 million visits to the app were registered, Krifca said.
What makes Albania special
Albania also has its sights set on several quality schemes, in line with EU regulations: the Geographical Indications, Designation of Origin, and Traditional Speciality Guaranteed- markers related to quality, geographical environment, tradition and origin of certain products.
The minister said four products are registered in national schemes, with the next step being their registration in the EU. These include Mishavina e Bjeshkeve te Kelmendit cheese from Kelmend, honey of Bedunica from Permet, boiled cheese from Malesia e Madhe, and goat cheese from Diber.
“We have a list of 40 more excellent products that are being studied and will soon be registered as protected,” Krifca added.
On the topic of trade with the EU and the possible removal of tariffs and quotas on limited agro-commodities, Krifca said Albania has a preferential relationship for most products exported to the EU, while for a few items, there are quotas, and for others, trade is liberalised with duty-free access.
The minister said the EU remains the most important market for Albanian exports, with more than $200 million in 2022 and more expected this year. The country strives to “produce not only more but better quality and safer products that meet the conditions of these markets,” she added.
As for Open Balkan, an initiative between Albania, North Macedonia, and Serbia to facilitate free trade and movement, Krifca said: “This served as a transitional phase for the opening and strengthening of economies until the moment the Berlin Process takes over as the umbrella initiative for the region.”
The Berlin Process aims to revitalise multilateral ties between the six EU hopefuls in the Western Balkans and selected EU member states and to improve regional cooperation in those countries on infrastructure and economic development.
In 2022, under the Open Balkan initiative, exports to Serbia increased by 13.6% while imports fell by 20%, with similar successes in North Macedonia as bureaucratic obstacles were dismantled.
“Through these agreements, we increased for 2022 by 94% the cargo volume with the other two countries.”
Values before EU funds
Krifca described the efforts to align with EU legislation as a “complex process” involving the integration of EU legislation into Albanian law, but even more, the reform of institutions.
“In the case of agriculture, the membership process will be preceded by an effort by the agricultural sector to align with EU standards, and this journey […] is even more important than the funds that Albanian agriculture will benefit from at the moment of membership.”
(Alice Taylor | Exit.al, Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic)
Source: euractiv.com
