The Prime Minister Edi Rama’s tour of open dialogue with farmers across Albania continued with a meeting with local residents and farmers in Dojan, the northern region of Tropoja, an area boasting incredible values and potentials for the development of agriculture, farming, mountainous tourism and agritourism. The gathering took place at one of the chestnut collection and production facilities, an investment supported by the government through its national agriculture support schemes.
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Hello everyone,
It is a special pleasure for me to revisit this very significant business facility, which, I believe, is also quite a meaningful enterprise for everyone wishing to see and understand how an operational and profitable enterprise can be launched and develop in a region or in an area where such an idea used to sound really a utopia just a few years ago. This is actually happening and we certainly wish a lot more than this happens all over the country, but the process of shifting attention towards the country’s regions, which have been characterized by an image and a distance of impossibility over the years since the fall of the communist regime, isn’t actually an easy process.
On the other hand, I am actually glad that, just like everywhere else, the Urban Renaissance programme, which initially focused on delivering projects in the urban area of the town, has actually also transformed some of the neuralgic points of Tropoja’s rehabilitation and has paved the way towards development of local tourism that used to merely be a desire considering the area’s nature wonders, but by no contribution of whatsoever from the central Tirana government for the Tropoja region. And I am very pleased that although we haven’t been often voted in by residents in this area, we have done more than all other previous governments combined.
We have delivered on projects and investments that have not just altered the atmosphere and the colours, the town’s attractive power alongside all the attractive areas, but, above all, such investment projects have cleared the way to all these events in the past few years, which are really important investment events. The investment projects in the Valbona Valley, in various attractions and taking notice of the fact that as many as 150,000 foreign and local tourists visited Tropoja this year, this is a very significant accomplishment. Of course our ambition and target is for these tourists to stay longer in these areas and to this end we need to do a lot more work, we need to do a lot more efforts, more investments, and I mean not only public investments, but also private investment projects.
To go back to what the Mayor said, we have also addressed the property ownership issue for over 2700 hectares -if I am not mistaken – of the chestnuts forest have been transformed to the municipality so that it can identify and arrange distribution of this whole area according to the agreements already reached in the territory, because the problem with the chestnut forest and other similar lad areas, mostly in Albania’s north, but also in certain areas in south, although rarely, is that the properties have not been returned and are currently in use by local residents, who haven’t accepted the Law No. 7501, yet they have agreed peacefully to distribute the land area according to the old land borders and therefore no potential conflicts are imminent. Almost all of them have agreed to use the old borders of the land they inherit from their ancestors and the land distribution has taken place based on understanding among local residents. Of course, sporadic disagreements are encountered in certain areas and the government doesn’t intervene, but instead local government authorities have been tasked with addressing this process. It is up to the municipal authorities to set up a working group to tackle each case gradually and deliver the property ownership certificates to the people according to the agreement on the land use.
On the other hand, it is very important that we also promote some positive examples, which are actual facts, and not desires, they are not plans or projects, but actual facts.
There is a lot of good news in Tropoja indeed and these news are a product of people, local people residing here, local people working here, people who struggle and face hardship, still they succeed and generate income for their families. But news is inexistent, especially for those already on the path of common rural development. The media stories are just discouraging; they are just poisonous, misinforming. It is just one side of the coin. Of course, there are still many problems in Albania. Of course, a farmer, whose production hasn’t been sold, is not an actor and he is not acting when appearing on the TV news stories. On the contrary, such farmers are real people and the problem is very real. However, this is just the half truth. The other half truth is that just on the other side of the road, exactly where the camera doesn’t record, are other farmers who have joined forces to work, produce and export together and therefore earn a lot. And as such, the first half truth becomes a big lie and is used to discourage people. Why? This is done just for a simple reason, because the owner of that TV channel is seeking to blackmail the government, is trying to blackmail this or that cabinet member.
The people visiting this area just six, seven or eight years ago and not 100 years ago, were mostly local residents, who work and reside here, or people who return back to their homes, after having left for several years. But having thousands of people visiting this area for pleasure and tourism purposes was actually unimaginable and that’s why those products were the products of extreme subsistence, if not just the fruits of a passion for work.
A typical stone house in Tropoja nestled amid a stunning landscape and natural wonders, combined with the local products and very generous Tropoja men and women one can find nowhere else around the world, just like it is the case with the traditional homes in Gjirokaster, Permet and elsewhere across Albania, by employing a modest investment can be transformed into a very profitable agritourism business, which doesn’t actually need quick access to the market to transport your locally grown agricultural produce, because this is a business, whose product is hospitality, good and healthy food, nature and the architecture of a traditional house.
Agritourism businesses are being launched here and all over Albania steadily. The number of people realizing this has increased and many of them have already launched successful agritourism businesses. Together with the Agricultural and Rural Minister, Frida Krifca, we have visited agritourism facilities in areas across the country, where no opportunities and other sources of income exist or in areas where it is impossible for you to think about cultivating the land and transport the product to bigger urban markets, because transport would cost you more than the product itself or such a product doesn’t meet the standards to be exported.
