The National Agriculture Training Scheme is established for the first time in Albania, a project devised to update information of agricultural extensionists and farmers to deliver on a more innovative agriculture through the knowhow transfer or new combinations of existing knowhow.
This training program is the first of its kind to take place on a national scale and benefits 1800 farmers countrywide, involved in agricultural production activities both for the local market and export. The training courses will take place in collaboration with qualified specialists from the technology transfer centers and farmers, who use new cultivation practices.
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Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks:
For the sake of truth, it is a pleasure to visit the Agricultural University. I remember when I was visiting the University for the second time and the rector told me back then: “You are the first Prime Minister in the history of this University to visit it twice.”It could be the 20th time that I am visiting this University and it is always a pleasure to do so, because there is always something new to happen and develop.
If we could turn back the clock for a second, all of those who have walked down this street and has entered and visited this territory can really figure out that no imaginable, let alone possible comparison line can be drawn between what this territory used to be, when I visited it for the first time, and what this territory is now, where thanks to the increasingly closer cooperation with the University and a steadily better structuring of this cooperation, we have moved to a whole new phase and a completely different level. We should definitely move forward and reach for the heights.
This University’s infrastructure was horrible, the state, the space and energy of this territory failed to meet the most basic needs of the whole university staff and students to feel inspired, motivated and positively driven on everyday work or learning process. Things have changed now and are significantly changing thanks to several components.
Before coming here, we visited the university campus that is certainly one the best among the European campuses in terms of infrastructure, the space and the conditions it will provide.
Our aim is that the facility serves as a complex for the students, the science, research, technology and business, not to grab and occupy its space, but serve as a point of reference for start-ups. We are working on this and we are strongly motivated, driven and encouraged because of the steps already taken by one of Europe’s most important research centres in Barcelona.
With the new program being launched today we enter into a new phase and I would like to pledge and tell entire University staff that this is not just an initiative to continue annually, a programmed initiative that would improve steadily through experience and outcome and we are ready to complete it by supporting and introducing more components based on your suggestions and results on the ground.
We are facing an absolutely globally tough situation. We are facing a situation that unfortunately changes its nature in terms of the reasons, yet the essence remains all the same in terms of an ongoing crisis, which is a prolonged one in Albania, as it all started with a devastating earthquake, which was followed by the grave health crisis of the coronavirus pandemic. We are not now facing the war-driven inflation that we didn’t cause nor can we halt it. However, something remains unchanged. Albanian agriculture and agricultural production are increasing steadily both in volume and in value of exports. This was the case during the pandemic and this is the case now as we speak. In the first eight months of 2022, Albania’s agriculture exports were valued over 55 million euros more than during the same period of the previous year. The data show an extraordinary potential. I can also provide another data that shows quite the opposite of the myth suggesting that agriculture is heading in the wrong direction. Actually, the opposite is true. I am not considering the 2013 data, because it is an incredible data on the number of certified young trees, a process that has then resulted in countless failures, because of the counterfeited and not healthy saplings. I am considering the data in 2017, when there were 1.9 million certified young trees. But, do you know the number of these trees now? As many as 35 million guaranteed and quality young trees. The process is far from over, but this is the great leap that has been already made.
In the meantime, we are now working on many components, ranging from investment projects on water irrigation and drainage systems to the support programs. The area of cultivated land in Albania has doubled, while milk and locally made dairy products meet almost 97% of the domestic need in Albania.
This is certainly also a program of financial incentives for the university lecturers and professors, though not an extraordinary, yet a significant one. However, it is not the only financial program.
Prior to embarking on the internationalization process and before the Tirana University management was to change, only 45 university lecturers had access to the European funds through different projects. Do you know how many there are today? A total of 800 lecturers are employed by Tirana University. More than 400 of them benefit additional funding based on their merit and hard work, thanks to their commitment within the structure. A huge leap has been made thanks to the EU funds since we launched this phase of electing the new rectors. We might attract more EU funds, but we used to lag behind everyone else and ranked bottom. We are not among the top ones today, yet steps are being launched thanks to the commitment of lecturers, rectors and the deans.
In its regular meeting on Wednesday, the government will decide to increase the salaries of the university staff by 7%, but in the meantime we will recognize the universities’ rights to set a ceiling to allow for further increase of the professors, lecturers and other public higher education workers from the universities’ own funds. There could be no equal salaries for all university professors and lecturers. They can’t be all the same. The university is autonomous, as it exists, works and develops in an intermediary space between the state and the market as a bidder.
By turning to the university, we also get a product like this farmers’ training program, which is a very important product and which the farmers cannot get on their own. But the program, in turn, offers an additional financial opportunity for the university.
To conclude, I would like to say that the synergies with the Vienna University will continue. I would also like to tell you something I haven’t had the opportunity to announce publicly in front of the university lecturers. I felt really relieved and very happy when the Vienna University rector and his accompanying delegation, after having visited Albania firs, I met them in Vienna and he said: “Prime Minister, when you came here to deliver a speech for the first time, you seemed very pessimistic given the situation of your university back then. I would like to tell you and this is not a compliment, because there is no reason for compliments, but the truth is that you should be really optimistic about the university lecturers and professors in Tirana.”
He who gives everything to this University he gives everything and a precious contribution to this country, because he would provide everything for the basis of life, namely the food, environment and health. The three are closely connected to this University. When the day comes for you to go to the hospital, it could be too late for you, but what one is taught here and what one learns here and what is transferred to the territory from here is also a vital support for the lives and wellbeing of our people.
Thank you very much!
