Albanian agriculture is undergoing a profound transformation, strongly supported by next year’s budget, which marks a record of 16.3 billion lek, with increased support for agriculture, livestock, fishing, and agrotourism, creating more development opportunities for farmers and rural enterprises.
In this context, today a large meeting was held with around 1500 farmers from all areas of the country, organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in cooperation with the Agricultural University of Tirana, with the participation of Prime Minister Edi Rama, who pointed out that, beyond the increase of the budget, there are also other financing opportunities, especially in the framework of the country’s rapprochement with the European Union, which opens new perspectives for funding farms, development projects and scientific research in agriculture.

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Dear and esteemed farmers, men and women, because they are not only men, it is truly important that we meet here today, at a moment when we have just begun a new mandate which, in terms of the weight of the challenges, is the most difficult mandate of the country’s governance, but fortunately this weight has been made easier for us by the Albanian people, made easier by you and by all those who, like you, have given us a full 83 mandates to successfully carry out the negotiations for European Union membership and to place the European seal on the transformation started three mandates ago.

Three mandates ago, compared to today, we have tripled greenhouse production and as a result have significantly increased competitiveness across a greenhouse surface that today has reached 2200 hectares.
Three mandates ago, when we managed to increase, in a way unimaginable some years earlier, vegetable production which has approached one point five million tons.
Three mandates in which exports have continued to grow and diversify, reaching a value that this year, in the first nine months alone, is higher than the entire value of last year, approaching the fulfillment of half a billion euros in exports.
But what is even more important is that we have overturned the ratio of exports to imports, which we found at one export to seven imports, and today we are at one to three, continuing on a downward trend, and our objective is to reach the target of one export to two imports when it comes to agricultural production.

It is very important that today we have a budget for next year not simply higher, but significantly higher compared to this year’s budget and, only in the national scheme, we are moving toward a budget that is almost double that of the year now ending.
Meanwhile, as the minister also said, regarding the direct scheme, all payments will be completed within this year at one hundred percent.

These are only a few of the many data points that can be recalled regarding the transformation carried out over these years, but what interests us today is what we must do in the years ahead. When I say must do, we must do it together, because agriculture, more than any other sector, needs this partnership with the government, needs this partnership with the local authorities, in order to face its challenges which are very complex and depend on factors that sometimes are beyond human control, such as climatic factors.

Nevertheless, what matters most in these years, and what is worth more than anything else in looking optimistically at the transformation we must deepen, is knowledge. Knowledge gained during all these years by you yourselves. Knowledge gained in a sector where things move with difficulty, but move continuously, and where, in the world we live in, technology brings opportunities unimaginable until yesterday.

And I have great confidence that if the knowledge you have acquired, together with the knowledge of an institution that will become increasingly important year after year for agriculture, for the economy, for the development of our country, which is the Agricultural University, we combine and place in the service of our policies, we will certainly succeed in the four years ahead in doing more than in all the past years combined. And we must believe this, first and foremost.

What I want to share with you with great pride and satisfaction is that the Agricultural University of Tirana is carrying out an exemplary self-transformation aimed at increasing the knowledge capacities across the entire spectrum of rural development. Aimed at improving not only academic teaching standards, not only the quality of programs in that university, but, and this is very important for all of us, what the Agricultural University of Tirana can and will do in service of each one of you. And here I am not referring simply to the training that began three years ago and provided support for farmers. Nor simply to the training that supports the administration of the Ministry of Agriculture. Here I mean a new level of cooperation. Cooperation aimed at absorbing more meaningfully the funds invested in agriculture.

We speak about the budget. The budget has increased and will continue to increase, but the budget is very little compared to how many other opportunities exist to increase financing for your farms, to finance your development projects, your agricultural enterprises, and to finance scientific research in your enterprises. And do not underestimate this word. Do not think of it as some grand term unrelated to you but consider it an added opportunity that comes with this phase of rapprochement with the European Union, opening perspectives we never had before in terms of financing that will enable us to face tomorrow’s difficult competition in the European single market.

We are finalizing this year our own Development Bank. Albania will finally have its Development Bank, which will also be another instrument to support the projects of Albanian enterprises, including your projects.
Meanwhile, we are putting into motion again, in your favor, Agro Credit, which is an instrument and institution under the Ministry of Finance, but keep in mind that the new credit line for small and medium enterprises with a focus on agriculture from the Bank of Albania, which reaches up to two hundred and fifty million euros in its first phase and may reach one billion euros, even two billion euros tomorrow, is there and is waiting for you.

On the other hand, I have said it repeatedly and want to underline it here. Local government, our municipalities, must rise to the height of this challenge. Our municipalities must rise to the level of your need for partnership, your need for finance, your need for institutional support and knowledge, your need not to be alone in this effort and to take every step with a secure partner. And municipalities have the possibility to become a secure partner for the village, for the farm, for the farmers and for their associations.

We need to build the right projects, we need to build the right partnerships, and we need only to disburse and disburse so that there is far more money in your hands to invest in the farm and to invest in raising standards and quality. Because the European Union comes as a blessing for all who are prepared, but it comes as a curse for those who are not ready. Requirements for safety standards, requirements for quality do not simply become present at every step, but are accompanied by very strict control instruments that, in fact, push you out of the market.

However, we have four years ahead of us, and four years are enough for that day to find you ready. Ready to take further steps forward, not to face a storm that knocks you to the ground because you cannot meet the required quality standards.

So, I would invite you all to be even more active in seeking more financial support, because I repeat, there are instruments. There is the state budget. There are the Agency for Agricultural and Rural Development. There is the new financing line of the Bank of Albania. There is Agro Credit. And the Albanian Development Bank will be added.

The municipality must be there, on the ground, with those who work the land and with those who need support to get more out of the land for themselves, for their families and for the national economy. And this is not a propaganda speech. This is a message for you, related to what we as the government have prepared for the village and for you, and we have moved beyond the survival phase.

Now we must build partnerships, create alliances where each does their part and we must do what is essential. Ensure that money does not lack for projects, investments, the necessary transformations for your farms. And that money should not come from one direction but from all directions I mentioned. From the budget. From European funds. From the Bank of Albania’s financing line. From the new Development Bank. From Agro Credit. And for money to come from all these directions, there must be the capacity to absorb it, and here we return to the right projects and the right partnerships.

I want these years to be the years of creating joint enterprises between local government and farmers. Enterprises that process and enterprises that bring more income for you, not for us, not for the government, not for the municipality.
The initial capital of such an enterprise should be very modest. Something small contributed by you. Something small contributed by the municipality. And the rest are covered by these instruments. This ensures that you work and think only about developing, not about how to pay the loan, without being forced tomorrow to sell your house. This is what I want us to do, and this is what we will do together, relying on the best examples among you and on all those who have the ambition to do this work properly.

We cannot compete in quantities with the world. Not with Europe. Not with the European Union tomorrow. Not even with some countries in the region. We cannot compete in quantities. But for all the conditions Albania has, and for all other reasons I will not list here, we must fix clearly in our minds that we must compete through quality and sell at a high price in the markets out there, as some of you already do, producing extraordinarily high-quality products.

I am very optimistic and I firmly believe that there is no difficulty we cannot overcome, just as I strongly believe that after all these years of accumulated experience, accumulated knowledge, accumulated confidence, it is time to make a leap. A major qualitative leap in this sector, and I assure you that we will achieve this together.

I have asked the Minister of Agriculture to leave the office of the Municipality of Cerrik and come to Tirana, but not to stay in Tirana. To stay where you are. To listen as much as possible to you, and to support with all his strength anyone who helps us create examples for others to follow.

Thank you very much to all of you for your presence and much respect for all those who come from the fields, and I sincerely wish you a prosperous end to the year and that the coming year be the most prosperous of all years so far, and I wish health, wellbeing and everything your heart desires for yourselves, your children, your relatives, your friends and of course for our blessed country.
Thank you.