A joint enterprise, where a number of local farmers have come together to produce a success story in Fier, has established an ambitious project. Growing grape vines in greenhouses in Libofsha has become another success story of cooperation among farmers through joint work and new technology to ensure high productivity, longer production cycle and high value of the product in foreign markets. Farmer Toni Meço was the first to launch this initiative. For 16 years now, Toni cultivates several grape varieties in greenhouses covering a total area of over two hectares with an average production of about 50 tons per year. Thanks to his hard work, Toni has succeeded in accessing regional and European markets with exports to Croatia, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Italy. More local farmers joined him in this enterprise, expanding the greenhouse area for grape growing to over 15 hectares. Prime Minister Edi Rama, accompanied by the Minister of agriculture Bledi Çuçi,and the Deputy Minister of Agriculture Dhimo Kote, visited this farm in Libofshe.“This is a kind of a joint enterprise with the participating farmers collaborating in the sale of the product, purchase of fertilizers and pesticides. We have an experience of 16 years and everything originally started by selling a few craters of grapes, but production has significantly increased over the past few years and the storage warehouses have now become operational. We have joined our forces and we have become more powerful. We jointly decide over the price and selling the product has become a very easy task. Coming together in bigger enterprises increases benefits,” Meço said, speaking about advantages of interaction with other local farmers.“Working separately in production and coming together in selling the product” is according to the Prime Minister the magic formula for success.  “My teacher Dhimo Kote, who among many other things has granted me the magic formula, separated in production, together in selling the product. It can no longer work with farmers cultivating small fragmented land plots and selling small quantities of produce on roadsides or roundabouts, and then protest over failure to sell their produce. Fortunately enough, there are always increasingly more and more examples of reflection over this. It doesn’t work that way. Whoever joins the sale is destined to win. Those who do not join their forces in sales are destined to lose. In agriculture, this is the key to success.”Meço, together with another farmer he collaborates with for years now have applied for funding under the IPARD program to further expand the greenhouse area. Deputy Agriculture Minister Kote clarified that “with the application for funds as part of the IPARD scheme, they aim to expand the greenhouse area by 1.5 to 2 hectares each. They are reticent, hard-working people,” deputy Agriculture Minister said, underlining that farmers should be instructed not to grow products not demanded in the market. The agricultural products diversification, according to Minister Çuçi, is part of the strategy for the country’s agricultural development. “This is part of our strategy to diversify agricultural products in order to have sustainable development in the value chain. This year, we included the subsidy for the greenhouse covering plastics under the national support scheme,” he said. On his part, Prime Minister Rama underlined that in addition to the government’s agriculture support schemes, it is important for farmers to gain access to the EU funds for agriculture, with know-how being essential to any successful application. “What enables you to develop and successfully deal with this rare model is the access to European funding, which is really accessible today, as it is the case with many farmers today. A significant fund has been made available and we have the ambition to absorb every single penny through projects. And it was not that funding was scarce, but for the funds to be granted a project and a business plan is needed. What we want to do is that you present the development plan and will then file the application and you will benefit grants and not loans that will add up to your budget proven that you implement the project,” the Premier said, adding that this is a sort of subsidy helping farmers to grow financial capacities.