Agriculture in Albania
Encyclopedia
Agriculture in Albania
employs 47.8% of the population and about 24.31% of the land is used for agricultural purposes. Agriculture contributes to 18.9% of the country's GDP. Domestic farm products accounted for 63% of household expenditures and 25% of exports in 1990.
regime created the world's most strictly controlled and isolated farm sector. The government invested in industry at the primary sector's expense, and food output fell short of the needs of the rapidly increasing population. The government reduced the size of personal plots, collectivized livestock, and forbid peasants from marketing their produce privately. By the early 1990s, the farms were no longer supplying enough food to urban areas and failing to meet the needs for raw materials in factories. The new regime responded by enabling land privatization
and free-market measures.
The law met especially stiff resistance in the country's mountainous northeastern regions where clans tried to stop large numbers of postwar immigrants from gaining title to their land. Local officials also impeded the reform process. Under the land-distribution program, Albania's agricultural sector gained about 380,000 small family farms averaging about 1.4 hectares in size. Western economists estimated that 35% of the new farms would not be economically viable. The government amended the land law to provide for income support of farmers in mountainous areas.
The land reform did not account for the 216 state farms and their 155,000 employees, who accounted for about 20% of the agricultural labor force and controlled 24% of the arable land. State farms contributed about 30% of the value of the country's agricultural output. The state farms' yields were about third more than cooperative farms because the state farms benefited from richer soils, more mechanization, easier access to farm services, government finance, and transportation. The breakdown of the communist structure dealt the state farms serious setbacks. By mid-1991 lines of authority had snapped, equipment and buildings had been plundered, and the amount of cultivated land had decreased by half. Although it planned to dissolve 60 unprofitable state farms in the mountainous northeast, the government generally spared the state farms from redistribution because their breakup would reduce urban food supplies.
Before the 1990s, Albania's main food crops were wheat
, corn
, fruit
s, and vegetables; however, there was increasing attention to tobacco
, olive
s, and oranges
. Between 1989 and 1991, the country's crop structure underwent a radical transformation. A lack of demand led to steep declines in the wheat, tobacco, sugar beets, sunflowers, and cotton grown in Albania. Disputes with the government's land-privatization program, shortages of funds for seeds and machinery, and the hasty privatization of the companies that provided farmers with machinery and fertilizers also had an effect. In the first third of 1991, milk production was down 50% compared to the corresponding period in 1990, bread-grain production was down 67%, and areas sown with cotton and tobacco had decreased by 80% and 50%, respectively.
In mid-1991, 10% to 15% of Albania's cultivable land lay fallow mainly because the state enterprises were not giving small farmers seed, fertilizers, and other necessities. Transportation breakdowns and other problems continued to force farmers away from crops requiring processing, leaving wheat, sugar, and vegetable oils in short supply. However, corn, meat, egg, and vegetable production increased. Despite these grounds for optimism, domestic production in 1992 was projected to meet only about 88% of the country's need for meat, 48% for wheat, 30% for sugar, and 5% for vegetable oils.
and Yugoslav
borders each day because they lacked fodder and sought to take advantage of high prices on foreign markets.
Albania's 409,528 hectares of pastureland remained state-owned despite the land reform. The Ministry of Agriculture's eighteen pasture enterprises managed grazing lands at the district level and charged customers a seasonal fee. Ministry officials estimated that grazing fees could have to increase fourfold before the pasture enterprises could break even.
s and 25% of its 1,433 combine harvester
s; state farms controlled the rest. Official inventories also listed 1,857 thresher
s. As the old order collapsed, the tractor stations metamorphosed into state-owned "agricultural machinery enterprises" that offered their services to peasant customers on a contractual basis. These enterprises often ignored state limitations on service charges. Some tractor drivers bought older Chinese tractors and offered their services at prices up to 40% more than those charged by the state enterprises. More than 75% of Albania's tractors were over 15 years old in 1991, and most tractors were in disrepair because plant closures had cut off supplies of spare parts.
and other pesticides, disinfectants for treating soil, and monocropping of wheat and corn had destroyed many pests' natural enemies and increased dependency on pesticides. Obsolete sorting and cleaning equipment lowered seed quality and varietal improvement was dependent on the crossing of local strains.
and Dubrovnik
, the destruction of woodlands to create pastures, the burning of wood for fuel, and the expansion of villages onto hillsides. Albania's nine state forestry industry complexes produced an estimated 2.3 million cubic meters of wood annually between 1976 and 1988; its 28 sawmills cut about 200,000 cubic meters of wood annually between 1977 and 1988. The pulp, paper, and fiberboard industries enjoyed little competitive advantage and did considerable environmental damage. The country's high dependency on wood for heating—amounting to 100% of household energy needs in mountainous areas and over 90% in the cities in 1991—contributed to the overexploitation
of forests.
enterprises, and two shellfish
enterprises. The government had little trouble privatizing all of the country's fishing vessels but anticipated difficulty in selling off the three fish canneries and the only shipyard servicing the fishing and coastal transportation fleet.
, figs
, olives, wheat
, maize
, potato
es, vegetable
s, fruit
s, sugar beet
s, grape
s; meat
, and dairy product
s. Agriculture accounts for 18.9% of the GDP and a large portion of the exports.
and the World Bank
, there is a large amount of reforestation
underway.
and the Adriatic Sea
give the underdeveloped fishing industry great potential. World Bank and European Community economists report that Albania's fishing industry has good potential to generate export earnings because prices in the nearby Greek and Italian markets are many times higher than those in the Albanian market. The fish available off the coasts of Albania are carp
, trout
, sea bream, mussels, and crustaceans.
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
employs 47.8% of the population and about 24.31% of the land is used for agricultural purposes. Agriculture contributes to 18.9% of the country's GDP. Domestic farm products accounted for 63% of household expenditures and 25% of exports in 1990.
History
In the 1970s and 1980s, the Enver HoxhaEnver Hoxha
Enver Halil Hoxha was a Marxist–Leninist revolutionary andthe leader of Albania from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania...
regime created the world's most strictly controlled and isolated farm sector. The government invested in industry at the primary sector's expense, and food output fell short of the needs of the rapidly increasing population. The government reduced the size of personal plots, collectivized livestock, and forbid peasants from marketing their produce privately. By the early 1990s, the farms were no longer supplying enough food to urban areas and failing to meet the needs for raw materials in factories. The new regime responded by enabling land privatization
Privatization
Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
and free-market measures.
Land Use
Irrigation, desalination, terracing of highlands, and drainage of marshes, often carried out by forced labor, added to the country's cultivable land after 1945. Large population increases reduced the amount of cultivable land per capita by 35% between 1950 and 1987, and by 20% between 1980 and 1988. About 423,000 hectares were irrigated in 1991, up from about 39,300 hectares in 1950. The economic disruptions of the early 1990s left only about 40% of the irrigation system functional and 20% in complete disrepair. Albania also invested substantially in imported Dutch greenhouses during its drive for food self-sufficiency.Land Organization Post WWII to 1991
In 1967, the country's only forms of agricultural production were state farms, collective farms, and personal plots granted to members of collective farms. The first Albanian state farm grew out of a large experimental farm set up by Italian colonists in the 1930s. After World War II, the government merged small farms into state farms. There were 216 state farms, which still controlled 24% of the arable land in 1991. The state farms received the best land and equipment and a large proportion amount of investment money.Land Organization 1991-Present
In July 1991, the government enacted a law that removed old property claims and regulated redistribution of farmland. The law granted landownership rights to members of the former collective farms and their households without requiring compensation, and also granted land-use rights up to 0.4 hectares to other qualifying residents. The law banned land sales and leases, thereby blocking voluntary consolidation of tiny landholdings.The law met especially stiff resistance in the country's mountainous northeastern regions where clans tried to stop large numbers of postwar immigrants from gaining title to their land. Local officials also impeded the reform process. Under the land-distribution program, Albania's agricultural sector gained about 380,000 small family farms averaging about 1.4 hectares in size. Western economists estimated that 35% of the new farms would not be economically viable. The government amended the land law to provide for income support of farmers in mountainous areas.
The land reform did not account for the 216 state farms and their 155,000 employees, who accounted for about 20% of the agricultural labor force and controlled 24% of the arable land. State farms contributed about 30% of the value of the country's agricultural output. The state farms' yields were about third more than cooperative farms because the state farms benefited from richer soils, more mechanization, easier access to farm services, government finance, and transportation. The breakdown of the communist structure dealt the state farms serious setbacks. By mid-1991 lines of authority had snapped, equipment and buildings had been plundered, and the amount of cultivated land had decreased by half. Although it planned to dissolve 60 unprofitable state farms in the mountainous northeast, the government generally spared the state farms from redistribution because their breakup would reduce urban food supplies.
Production
| Product | 1979-81 Averages | 1985 | 1987 | 1988 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wheat | 492 | 530 | 565 | 589 |
| Corn | 318 | 400 | 320 | 306 |
| All cereals | 916 | 1,055 | 1,010 | 1,024 |
| Potatoes | 112 | 136 | 135 | 137 |
| Beef, Mutton, Pork | 52 | 54 | 55 | 56 |
| Vegetables | 193 | 186 | 188 | 188 |
| Tomatoes | 44 | 47 | 48 | 48 |
| Fruit (excluding melons) | 156 | 193 | 210 | 216 |
| Sugar Beets | 298 | 320 | 360 | 360 |
| Milk | 326 | 342 | 346 | 347 |
| Eggs | 10 | 13.2 | 13.2 | 14 |
Before the 1990s, Albania's main food crops were wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
, corn
Corn
Corn is the name used in the United States, Canada, and Australia for the grain maize.In much of the English-speaking world, the term "corn" is a generic term for cereal crops, such as* Barley* Oats* Wheat* Rye- Places :...
, fruit
Fruit
In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...
s, and vegetables; however, there was increasing attention to tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
, olive
Olive
The olive , Olea europaea), is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea.Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the...
s, and oranges
Orange (fruit)
An orange—specifically, the sweet orange—is the citrus Citrus × sinensis and its fruit. It is the most commonly grown tree fruit in the world....
. Between 1989 and 1991, the country's crop structure underwent a radical transformation. A lack of demand led to steep declines in the wheat, tobacco, sugar beets, sunflowers, and cotton grown in Albania. Disputes with the government's land-privatization program, shortages of funds for seeds and machinery, and the hasty privatization of the companies that provided farmers with machinery and fertilizers also had an effect. In the first third of 1991, milk production was down 50% compared to the corresponding period in 1990, bread-grain production was down 67%, and areas sown with cotton and tobacco had decreased by 80% and 50%, respectively.
In mid-1991, 10% to 15% of Albania's cultivable land lay fallow mainly because the state enterprises were not giving small farmers seed, fertilizers, and other necessities. Transportation breakdowns and other problems continued to force farmers away from crops requiring processing, leaving wheat, sugar, and vegetable oils in short supply. However, corn, meat, egg, and vegetable production increased. Despite these grounds for optimism, domestic production in 1992 was projected to meet only about 88% of the country's need for meat, 48% for wheat, 30% for sugar, and 5% for vegetable oils.
Livestock
A failed campaign to collectivize livestock in the late 1970s and early 1980s led to meat and dairy product shortages, and the communists retraced their steps. The regime gave animal husbandry a high priority in the Eighth Five-Year Plan (1986–90). In mid-1991, shortages of feed severely hampered livestock production and forced farmers to allocate much of their land to cultivation of forage and feed corn. The animals raised on this diet were deficient in protein and generally of poor quality. Despite the ban on food exports, about 1,000 calves, cows, sheep, and other livestock were smuggled across the GreekGreece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and Yugoslav
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
borders each day because they lacked fodder and sought to take advantage of high prices on foreign markets.
Albania's 409,528 hectares of pastureland remained state-owned despite the land reform. The Ministry of Agriculture's eighteen pasture enterprises managed grazing lands at the district level and charged customers a seasonal fee. Ministry officials estimated that grazing fees could have to increase fourfold before the pasture enterprises could break even.
Mechanization
Faithful to Stalin's teachings on agricultural organization, Albania's communist regime allowed state farms to possess tractors but only gave collective farms access to machinery through machine tractor stations. These stations remained a cornerstone of Albania's collective agricultural sector for decades. In 1991 the 33 machine tractor stations controlled about 63% of Albania's 10,630 tractorTractor
A tractor is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction...
s and 25% of its 1,433 combine harvester
Combine harvester
The combine harvester, or simply combine, is a machine that harvests grain crops. The name derives from the fact that it combines three separate operations, reaping, threshing, and winnowing, into a single process. Among the crops harvested with a combine are wheat, oats, rye, barley, corn ,...
s; state farms controlled the rest. Official inventories also listed 1,857 thresher
Threshing machine
The thrashing machine, or, in modern spelling, threshing machine , was a machine first invented by Scottish mechanical engineer Andrew Meikle for use in agriculture. It was invented for the separation of grain from stalks and husks. For thousands of years, grain was separated by hand with flails,...
s. As the old order collapsed, the tractor stations metamorphosed into state-owned "agricultural machinery enterprises" that offered their services to peasant customers on a contractual basis. These enterprises often ignored state limitations on service charges. Some tractor drivers bought older Chinese tractors and offered their services at prices up to 40% more than those charged by the state enterprises. More than 75% of Albania's tractors were over 15 years old in 1991, and most tractors were in disrepair because plant closures had cut off supplies of spare parts.
Fertilizers
During peak years, Albania had used fertilizers less than almost any other nation in Eastern Europe. In the early 1990s the agricultural sector experienced a shortage of fertilizer, pesticides and hybrid seed. In 1989 Albanian farmers had applied about 158 kilograms of active ingredients per hectare, but the country's economic breakdown lowered the total to 135 kilograms in 1990 and 38 kilograms in 1991. A lack of currency caused fertilizer supplies to drop 80% and pesticide reserves to fall 63%. Intensive application of lindaneLindane
Lindane, also known as gamma-hexachlorocyclohexane, , gammaxene, Gammallin and erroneously known as benzene hexachloride , is an organochlorine chemical variant of hexachlorocyclohexane that has been used both as an agricultural insecticide and as a pharmaceutical treatment for lice and...
and other pesticides, disinfectants for treating soil, and monocropping of wheat and corn had destroyed many pests' natural enemies and increased dependency on pesticides. Obsolete sorting and cleaning equipment lowered seed quality and varietal improvement was dependent on the crossing of local strains.
Forests
In the early 1990s, the thickest woodlands were in the central and northern mountain ranges. Albania’s southern half was deforested due to historic cutting of oak trees to build the merchant ships of VeniceVenice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
and Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...
, the destruction of woodlands to create pastures, the burning of wood for fuel, and the expansion of villages onto hillsides. Albania's nine state forestry industry complexes produced an estimated 2.3 million cubic meters of wood annually between 1976 and 1988; its 28 sawmills cut about 200,000 cubic meters of wood annually between 1977 and 1988. The pulp, paper, and fiberboard industries enjoyed little competitive advantage and did considerable environmental damage. The country's high dependency on wood for heating—amounting to 100% of household energy needs in mountainous areas and over 90% in the cities in 1991—contributed to the overexploitation
Overexploitation
Overexploitation, also called overharvesting, refers to harvesting a renewable resource to the point of diminishing returns. Sustained overexploitation can lead to the destruction of the resource...
of forests.
Fishing
Albania's fishery industry, which was underdeveloped and poorly managed, consisted of 4 state-owned fishing enterprises, 16 aquacultureAquaculture
Aquaculture, also known as aquafarming, is the farming of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, molluscs and aquatic plants. Aquaculture involves cultivating freshwater and saltwater populations under controlled conditions, and can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is the...
enterprises, and two shellfish
Shellfish
Shellfish is a culinary and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater environments, some kinds are found only in freshwater...
enterprises. The government had little trouble privatizing all of the country's fishing vessels but anticipated difficulty in selling off the three fish canneries and the only shipyard servicing the fishing and coastal transportation fleet.
Land
The land used for farming is about 698,900 hectares, which is about 24% of the total land area. Arable land totals at about 603,700 hectares, 21% of the land area, and permanent crops total about 121,000 hectares, 4.21% of the land area; permanent pasturelands account for another 409,500 hectares, or 14.2% of the land area. More than 100,000 hectares of the cultivable land has a slope greater than 30 percent and was allocated almost entirely to tree crops, such as olives. Forests and woodlands covered more than 38% of the total land area. The soils of the coastal plain and eastern plateau are fertile, but acidic soils are predominant in the 200,000 hectares of cropland in hilly and mountainous areas.Production and Exports
The main agricultural products in Albania are tobaccoTobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
, figs
FIGS
FIGS is an acronym for French, Italian, German, Spanish. These are usually the first four languages chosen to localize products into when a company enters the European market....
, olives, wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
, maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
, potato
Potato
The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...
es, vegetable
Vegetable
The noun vegetable usually means an edible plant or part of a plant other than a sweet fruit or seed. This typically means the leaf, stem, or root of a plant....
s, fruit
Fruit
In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...
s, sugar beet
Sugar beet
Sugar beet, a cultivated plant of Beta vulgaris, is a plant whose tuber contains a high concentration of sucrose. It is grown commercially for sugar production. Sugar beets and other B...
s, grape
Grape
A grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...
s; meat
Meat
Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...
, and dairy product
Dairy product
Dairy products are generally defined as foods produced from cow's or domestic buffalo's milk. They are usually high-energy-yielding food products. A production plant for such processing is called a dairy or a dairy factory. Raw milk for processing comes mainly from cows, and, to a lesser extent,...
s. Agriculture accounts for 18.9% of the GDP and a large portion of the exports.
Forestry
Albania has soils and a climate favorable to an extensive lumber industry. Many of the historic forests of Albania were destroyed with inefficient wood industry and expanse of agricultural land in the 1990’s. Today, forests cover about one third of Albania’s land area and, due to an agreement with ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
, there is a large amount of reforestation
Reforestation
Reforestation is the natural or intentional restocking of existing forests and woodlands that have been depleted, usually through deforestation....
underway.
Fishing
Albania’s proximity to the Ionian SeaIonian Sea
The Ionian Sea , is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, southern Albania to the north, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante, Kephalonia, Ithaka, and...
and the Adriatic Sea
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
give the underdeveloped fishing industry great potential. World Bank and European Community economists report that Albania's fishing industry has good potential to generate export earnings because prices in the nearby Greek and Italian markets are many times higher than those in the Albanian market. The fish available off the coasts of Albania are carp
Carp
Carp are various species of oily freshwater fish of the family Cyprinidae, a very large group of fish native to Europe and Asia. The cypriniformes are traditionally grouped with the Characiformes, Siluriformes and Gymnotiformes to create the superorder Ostariophysi, since these groups have certain...
, trout
Trout
Trout is the name for a number of species of freshwater and saltwater fish belonging to the Salmoninae subfamily of the family Salmonidae. Salmon belong to the same family as trout. Most salmon species spend almost all their lives in salt water...
, sea bream, mussels, and crustaceans.