Farmers in Mollas, municipality of Erseke, a renowned area for apple orchards and vegetable growing, including over 200 hectares of orchards with an estimated apple production quantity of over 300,000 metric tonnes, with around 80% of its total production already sold out, part of the south-eastern Albanian region of Korça, where around 30% of total of fruits are grown in Albania, attended a meeting with the Prime Minister Edi Rama in an open dialogue, focusing on the new investment projects on the area’s road infrastructure to provide local farmers easier access to the market, the government support through subsidies that have helped to boost production capacities and improve quality; the project on construction of new collection and storage centre due to be set up in cooperation with the municipality, as well as the government measures to protect national economy, household economy and small business and vulnerable social categories in the face of rising prices and the global energy crisis due to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
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Hello everyone and thank you very much for attending this meeting, part of a series of gatherings we are holding in all regions and municipalities all over Albania to engage in discussions with all social categories, with farmers and agricultural rural development being a top priority for us.
We are really encouraged by the agriculture’s and its exports significant growth and the fact that Albania’s agricultural exports were valued at just around 120 million euros when we embarked on this effort whereas the total value of agricultural exports is gradually nearing to half a billion of euros this year, this fact again speaks for itself about a reality which, despite its difficulties, regardless of inherited regress of the national agriculture over so many years, when agriculture, farming, livestock and the rural areas were left to total oblivion, it is a changing reality.
This area, as the Minister of Agriculture already highlighted, is home to a tradition, but it is also maintaining a trend of continuity in recent years. It is a continued upward and growth trend and the market data and figures clearly show that your work is really hard, but also really rewarding at the end of the day. The fact that around 80% of the apple production, for example, has already been sold, speaks volumes about the farmers’ earnings, but it also speaks volumes about that constantly smaller part of farmers unable to access the market, because they are somehow failing to adapt to new conditions and adapt to market logic.
An ever growing number of farmers are well on the path to success now. This is an indisputable fact, because the area of cultivated agricultural land in Albania wouldn’t otherwise have doubled as compared to six or seven years ago, when we launched the irrigation programme to send water to many areas and barren lands across the country. Not only that, there would otherwise be no need for an ever growing number of storage and collection centres for agricultural products and the existing ones wouldn’t survive over the years if the agriculture sector was really to be abandoned as some claim. Agriculture is not a sector being abandoned, but a sector gradually recovering. The number of young people leaving the countryside and rural areas is actually higher than the number of those returning back home, but it is also a fact that we are witnessing a new trend of many young people returning to the rural areas. However, this ever growing number clearly shows the near future of the rural areas and the countryside.
There are certainly conditions that need to be met and tackled and this will happen step by step, but which are never sufficient indeed, as for example the condition of building more collection and storage capacities in naturally refrigerated conditions, as well as the processing capacities to increase the products value.
Another element I would like to draw attention to is the need for farmers to obtain the taxpayer unique identification number (NIPT). There are still many farmers refusing to obtain NIPT, fearing I don’t know what, fearing taxes and the liabilities. However, if a farmer declines to obtain NIPT he will be deprived of any support and assistance.
A third and a very significant element is that around 35% of the NIPTs in this area are obtained by women and the latter are the ones most committed to making projects and benefiting from the government support funds. This is fantastic and we want to continue to support this area. I am convinced that what Niko already said will make this area thrive, because drastic shortening of the distance and drive time to just 20 minutes with Korça, primary as a main market in this south-eastern region, as well as construction of the road leading to Leskovik, a process already underway in collaboration with the Albanian Development Fund, and a better interconnectivity between the production areas and the markets will increase the value of everything here.
It is definitely a wonderful sunny day, but, on the other hand, it also reminds me every second of the fact that the water level at the major hydro power plants is dramatically falling every day, which means that the power generation capacity is lower and we will be forced to import electricity, but the energy price in the international markets is stratospherically high and in order for us not to impose such extremely high prices on the consumer, the state budget is forced to pay out colossal amounts of money. As such, this is a situation where great understanding is needed about the facts. We can’t afford telling lies and instead of informing people, instead of creating the conditions for us all to agree on the facts of a war that is increasingly attacking us, fortunately not through bombs, but through energy prices and the soaring inflation and increase the poison dose and the dose of disinformation, increase the dose of viciousness vis-à-vis the public by issuing monstrously defamatory and heinous statements and disseminate such statements via the media outlets that mirror all these kinds of slanderous remarks and this is definitely not a coincidence.
However, I would like to express my profound respect and gratitude for your hard work and voice readiness to be there for each and every one of you and help tackle any problem you face, assuring you of our government commitment to keep supporting rural areas stronger, by making available all the opportunities we can afford in a bid to enhance production, collection, processing and definitely exporting capacities, without forgetting development of agritourism sector that is already underway in this area and many other guesthouses are being built. Once construction of the new road is completed, I can tell you that this area, being adjacent to Korça, will definitely be a fresh value on the chain already created from Korça and its surrounding areas regarding tourism. Local tourism will develop further and will generate more income for the families by transforming their private family homes into guesthouses and hospitality infrastructure facilities.
Thank you!
