Dritan is a returnee emigrant, who, together with is brothers, has decided to invest their savings in their family-owned land by building greenhouses to grow vegetables. Dritan is a beneficiary under the national scheme for support of agriculture and rural development to build a solar greenhouse. Dritan has benefited around a grant of 5 million lek for the investment and an additional amount of one million lek to replace the previous plastic greenhouse covering.
Prime Minister Edi Rama, accompanied by the Director of the Agricultural and Rural Development Agency (ARDA) Frida Krifca, visited Dritan’s newly-built one-hectare greenhouse to see first-hand progress of this investment.
The new greenhouse meets modern technology standards. “We are visiting here a greenhouse that has been built thanks to the support under the national scheme for support of agriculture and rural development in 2018. It is a modern 1-ha greenhouse, 5.5 meters high and 9-meter-wide with ventilation at each corner. Dritan owns another 1.3-ha greenhouse and he has benefited a funding under the national scheme to replace the plastic covering,” said ARDA head Frida Krifca, who has closely monitored the investment implementation.
Dritan said that thanks to the investment to replace the greenhouse’s plastic covering he managed to save yield losses due to bad weather conditions. “Around this time last year, severe winds caused serious damages. Luckily enough, I have now replaced the plastic covering. I have built everything from scratch.”
Dritan’s whole quantity of fresh produce is contracted by the vegetable collection companies and it is export-bound. He has signed a contract with entrepreneur Nedrete Arapi, who advises farmers over the varieties they should plant. With the new investment in place, he expects to grow around 100 tons of tomato and some 40 tons of peppers.
“I own another uncultivated land area of around 1.2 hectares. With other projects, I am looking forward to building a new greenhouse there. I have been consulting with the exporting company and I was advised to grow this kind of tomatoes and peppers, because if she doesn’t recommend us what to grow, I would be unable to sell our products,” he said.
The government head said this is “the basis of the whole scheme.”
Meanwhile, the lack of skilled and qualified workforce remains a serious problem for the entrepreneurial farmers. “I face serious shortages of workforce, and men workers in particular. Thanks God there are hardworking women in this area and they work with us. Men are deceived by Greece. I have a male worker who is still working here. He left to Greece at the peak of work and came back home with 300 euros only in his pocket,” he said.
The Premier urged entrepreneur to place priority to plans to hike the workers’ salaries.
